SIXTY PERCENT OF people in Ireland believe people should be required to provide official ID to access adult porn websites, a new poll has found.

A Claire Byrne Live/TheJournal.ie by Amarách Research of 1,000 adults on Monday found that just 26% of people believe you should not need official ID to access pornography websites, while 14% of people surveyed said they didn’t know if they’d support such a requirement. 

Under radical new laws being introduced in the UK, people who want to view pornography online could require official ID to do so from July.

Websites which primarily host porn will be required to carry out age-verification checks to ensure anyone visiting the site is over 18 years old in a bid to prevent children from accessing pornography.

It’s a world first. Because of that, it is not clear exactly how it will be implemented or if it will even be effective in preventing children from accessing pornography but the Irish government has said it will consider a similar system to the UK’s so-called ‘porn block’ law as part of new legislation on online safety.

In this week’s episode of our podcast The Explainer, Caroline West, a doctoral scholar in sexuality at DCU, and TheJournal.ie’s Senior Reporter Michelle Hennessy join us in studio to examine all aspects of the new law.

The Explainer / SoundCloud

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This episode was put together by presenter Sinéad O’Carroll, executive producer Christine Bohan, producer Aoife Barry, assistant producer/technical operator Nicky Ryan and contributors Caroline West, a doctoral scholar in sexuality at DCU, and TheJournal.ie’s Senior Reporter Michelle Hennessy. Design by Palash Somani.