Rep. Jim Matheson aims to protect kids from pornography

SALT LAKE CITY — Rep. Jim Matheson knows he can't stop all children from viewing pornography on the Internet.

But the Congressman wants to make it harder to access.

That's why he plans to propose legislation this year that would require websites selling pornography to employ the same kind of age-verification software already being used for online purchases of products like tobacco and wine.

Matheson also wants to impose a 25-percent tax on sales of Internet porn, which would be used to fund enforcement of age-filtration software for websites with adult content.

"Historically (pornography) has been age-restricted at a point of sale that's a brick-and-mortar store," he said during a recent interview in Salt Lake. "For us to assume that since it's on the Internet that we should ignore it is wrong. As a society we've already made a decision that we want to restrict sales to a certain age."

"People say, 'Oh, there are going to be ways to get around it.' I understand, but I think we need to make the effort to do what we can and I'm not going to sit back and do nothing."

Matheson wants to implement an age-verification software that would require users to input a series of personal data points such as a birthdate or government-issued identification number. The software would subsequently crosscheck those vitals against billions of records from several reliable sources. Without a match between the user's information and the database, access to age-restricted content would be denied.

Presently, the pornographic Internet sites with even a modicum of age filtration can rather easily be thwarted by teens willing to simply provide a falsified birth date or check a box confirming their adulthood.

"Thirty-one percent of seventh- to 12th-graders pretend to be older so they can access a pornographic website that has an age restriction on it," said Patricia Sheffield, director of the Washington County Children's Justice Center. "They lie by counting back from their age to put in what they would have to have for the right birthday."

Elementary-age children who could accidentally encounter pornographic material would also benefit from additional barriers to Internet pornography. By way of example, Sheffield explains that 24 percent of children in kindergarten and first grade spend time on the Internet unsupervised by an adult.