Two experts who advised the government on its plans have expressed reservations about both how quickly the scheme is being rolled out and its wider implications.
"It seems to me to be a very premature date," commented Dr Victoria Nash, lead author of a report commissioned in the run-up to the law being drafted.
"The idea you can get a regulatory body up and running in that timeframe seems extraordinary to me.
"And while I don't have a problem with asking these companies to act responsibly, I don't see it as a solution to stopping minors seeing pornography."
This, she explained, was because the Act does not tackle the fact that services including Twitter and Tumblr contain hardcore pornography but will not be required to introduce age-checks. Nor, she added, would teens be prevented from sharing copied photos and clips among themselves.
"It may make it harder for children to stumble across pornography, especially in the younger age range, but it will do nothing to stop determined teenagers," Dr Nash concluded.
One cyber-security expert on the same advisory panel was more critical.
"The timeline is unrealistic - but beyond that, this is one of the worst proposals I have seen on digital strategy," said Dr Joss Wright from the Oxford Internet Institute.
"There are hundreds of thousands of websites where this material can be accessed and you are not going to catch all of those.
"There's privacy issues - you're requiring people to effectively announce the fact they are looking at this material to the credit card authorities.
"And there's serious security issues from requiring people to enter their credit card details into untrusted sites.
"They may well say there will be other magical ways to do the age check, but I very much doubt they will be non-discriminatory [against adults without credit cards], transparent, privacy-preserving and secure for end-users."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40630582It's just another ill thought out, rushed government policy.
VPN usage is already rising year-on-year to access blocked content, this will be no different.