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A recent study in the United Kingdom shares a chilling picture for parents everywhere.
It found that, on average, children first see pornography at 13. To some, that may not sound particularly surprising given the ubiquitous and unbridled access some young adolescents have to the internet.
But the story doesn’t end there. Ten per cent of children in the U.K. had seen pornography by the age of 9, and more than one in four by 11. By 18, nearly four out of five said they had viewed not only pornographic content but violent pornography. Thirty-eight per cent reported coming across pornography accidentally.
Already, pornography has severe adverse effects on society. Today’s online version is not only more easily accessible but more extreme and, in many cases, violent than ever before.
Hidden consequences
Looking at pornography changes the brain. It impacts attitudes and behaviours, harms relationships and promotes destructive and degrading views about sex.
Another recent report by the U.K. Children’s Commissioner noted a link between exposure to pornography and sexual abuse perpetrated by children.
In Canada, age verification legislation, Bill S-210 (Protecting Young Persons from Exposure to Pornography Act) was passed by the Senate in April 2023. The legislation was on the verge of becoming law when the bill died on the order paper when the election was called in March 2025.
Examples to consider
Other countries are tackling this issue with innovations that address technological change.
In France, a new law empowering communications regulator Arcom to create and adopt a standard for age verification requirements recently came into effect. Under this standard, pornography platforms must block access to users who fail to verify their age.
Likewise, the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act, passed in 2023, includes age verification to protect children from harmful content online. This includes a requirement for online platforms that share pornography to have effective age verification measures in place by July 2025.
Australia has not mandated age verification but continues to test age assurance technologies to help regulators determine the best approach. In the meantime, a law did pass requiring social media companies to prevent children in Australia under 16 from using their sites which is scheduled to come into effect by December 2025.
In the United States, the 2025 SCREEN Act, if passed, will mandate age verification measures across the country. Twenty-one states have already passed their own age verification laws and 17 of those states have recognized pornography as a public health hazard.
No easy solutions
There are practical challenges with enforcing meaningful age verification. Policy approaches vary, and there appears to be no one-size-fits-all solution.
But there are meaningful measures that can reduce rates of childhood exposure to online porn.
Depending on the jurisdiction, age verification may apply only to pornographic websites, to sites where at least one third of their content is pornography, or more broadly to companies that make or host any pornographic content.
Likewise, age verification methods differ. Generally, laws require more than self-declaration of age and exclude the use of online payments that do not require the cardholder to be 18 or older.
France’s data protection authority notes that the collection of government-issued IDs, analyzing browsing history, or using biometrics to verify age would be contrary to data protection rules. Otherwise, permitted methods to verify age may include government ID, digital identity services, facial age estimation, or methods based on transaction data such as mortgage, education or employment documents.
There are also so-called dual anonymous options whereby the site does not know the user’s identity and a third-party verification service does not know which site the user is visiting.
Ultimately, whatever methods are applied, no law can entirely prevent children from seeing porn online. Underage users will find workarounds. But the bottom line is that using age verification measures makes it more difficult for children to access online porn, so fewer will be exposed to it.
After Louisiana passed age verification legislation in 2023, for example, traffic to Pornhub dropped by 80 per cent. In other states, Pornhub has cut off access to its site entirely, rather than implementing age verification processes.
Some may argue that children will continue to access pornography using virtual private networks (VPNs). But even that introduces an extra step and potentially a meaningful barrier.
There are ways to counter the use of VPNs. The Age Verification Providers Association notes that “requiring adult websites to “use robust location verification methods similar to those in online gambling, lawmakers can close this loophole and better enforce age verification laws in their states.”
This already happens in other instances. Netflix, for example, blocks VPNs with common IP addresses.
Others argue that age verification laws are unnecessary, since parents can install filters on devices. Indeed, parents should do what they can to protect children.
But a study in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking notes that between 17 and 77 households (depending on the type of content) in a child’s network would need to be filtered to prevent children from seeing pornography in a 12-month period. Most devices lack such filters. Many parents don’t know how to install or maintain them or don’t know the importance of doing so.
Most Canadians agree on the need to protect children from pornography, even if they disagree on the means of doing so.
Parents and teachers cannot combat the problems of pornography for children on their own.
Governments must support them in their efforts to protect Canadian children. Age verification laws are an important means to protect as many children as possible from viewing porn and experiencing its negative effects.
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