Looks like an administrative oversight will push the start date of the UK’s age verification law past July 15th. It’s not the first time the date has moved. According to a report in TechCrunch:
Giving a statement in the House of Commons this morning, digital minister Jeremy Wright said the government failed to notify the European Commission of age verification standards it expects companies to meet — in line with EU law.
Not having done so means it can’t legally introduce the policy at this stage.
“It has come to my attention in recent days that an implementation process was not undertaken for an element of this policy and I regret to say this will delay the commencement date,” he told parliament – adding that the error is expected to result in a delay “in region of six months.”
The minister went on to say that the UK remains committed to age verification, although no new deadline for implementation was announced at this time.
The good news is, merchants who were behind in their implementation efforts now have some breathing room, although we don’t yet know how much. We recommend taking advantage of this opportunity to formulate your plan for complying with regulation. We remain committed to helping our merchants through our AVSecure partnership, and of course we’re here to answer any questions you may have. For now we still expect age verification will go into effect… eventually. So please stay tuned, and as always we will have our ears to the ground and will report any new developments as they happen.
