Pornography regulation, legislation and enforcement
Call for evidence description
The government wants to ensure that any legislation and regulation operates appropriately for all pornographic content, and that the criminal justice system have the tools they need to respond to online illegal pornographic material, and exploitation and abuse in the industry.
The Independent Pornography Review involves a comprehensive assessment of the legislation, regulation and enforcement of online and offline pornographic content, and is overseen by Independent Lead Reviewer Baroness Gabby Bertin.
The review will take an evidence-based approach to develop a range of recommendations on how to best to achieve the review’s objectives:
- understand the prevalence and harmful impact of illegal pornography online, and the impact on viewers of other forms of legal pornography, including emerging themes like AI-generated pornography, and the impact on viewer’s attitudes to violence against women and girls;
- assess the public’s awareness and understanding of existing regulation and legislation of pornography;
- consider the current rules in place to regulate the pornography industry, comparing online and offline laws;
- determine if law enforcers and the justice system are responding to illegal pornography sufficiently, and if change is needed;
- find out how prevalent human trafficking and exploitation is in the industry, before recommending how to identify and tackle this;
- use this knowledge to set out what more can be done to provide those who need it with guidance on the potential harmful impact of pornography.
To ensure the review’s final recommendations are robust, it is important that a broad range of views and evidence are considered. This call for evidence invites:
- members of the public
- subject matter experts
- organisations
to contribute to the review.
The call for evidence closes on 7 March 2024.
