A Bill to impose penalties on credit and debit card providers for the facilitation of the downloading of child pornography from the internet; and for connected purposes
This Bill would make any payment institution liable for penalties if it facilitated the payment of money for indecent images of children. The Bill does not limit its scope to the use of debit and credit cards, but card payments to internet sites responsible for delivering such images are its main target. Credit and debit card issuers would have a legal duty to maintain full personal identity details of all their customers. A company found guilty of an offence under the proposed legislation would face an unlimited fine.
House of Commons
2 May 2012
This bill would make payment providers liable for penalties if they help payments go to websites that host indecent images of children. It mainly targets card payments but isn’t limited to them, and would require payment firms to keep and verify full identity details of customers. Offences could result in unlimited fines for the companies involved.
The bill is at its second reading in the House of Commons and has not yet progressed to committee stage or to the Lords.
Generated 21 February 2026
No recorded votes for this bill yet.
