Forum Discussion

Mammoth_'s avatar
Mammoth_
Joining in
9 months ago
Solved

Pin required for age restricted content?

I have the parental controls settings watershed to set to OFF, however it still asks for a pin when viewing age restricted content, eg UFC. There is seemingly no option to remove this behaviour.  I ...
Parental PIN age restricted
  • newapollo's avatar
    newapollo
    9 months ago

    Hi Mammoth_ 

    The watershed pin is a mandatory OFCOM directive ofcom.org.uk/mandatory-daytime-protection and affects Sky as well as Virgin, they can't transmit (or re-transmit) any programme or film rated higher than 12+ out of watershed hours without the viewing PIN being locked on.

    It was introduced as part of an agreement that Sky got to broadcast higher rated films that would ordinarily have been behind a watershed during the day. It affects various channels such as Sky Cinema, Sky Documentaries and Sky Comedy. They all have mandatory PIN protection for shows they broadcast outside the watershed hours. This also applies to normal programs, movies, box sets etc.

    On Demand also has PIN protection based on the watershed hours.

    This  also applies to some Startover programs, if you have missed the start you can watch live without a pin, but if you watch from the start you need a pin

newapollo's avatar
newapollo
Very Insightful Person
9 months ago

Hi Mammoth_ 

The watershed pin is a mandatory OFCOM directive ofcom.org.uk/mandatory-daytime-protection and affects Sky as well as Virgin, they can't transmit (or re-transmit) any programme or film rated higher than 12+ out of watershed hours without the viewing PIN being locked on.

It was introduced as part of an agreement that Sky got to broadcast higher rated films that would ordinarily have been behind a watershed during the day. It affects various channels such as Sky Cinema, Sky Documentaries and Sky Comedy. They all have mandatory PIN protection for shows they broadcast outside the watershed hours. This also applies to normal programs, movies, box sets etc.

On Demand also has PIN protection based on the watershed hours.

This  also applies to some Startover programs, if you have missed the start you can watch live without a pin, but if you watch from the start you need a pin

  • Mammoth_'s avatar
    Mammoth_
    Joining in
    9 months ago

    Amazing that if that is the case, that the Technical support team are not trained to be able to offer this same response. Thanks for your answer. If only the Virgin support could actually be trained to do their role properly. 

    • newapollo's avatar
      newapollo
      Very Insightful Person
      9 months ago

      You can still add a PIN to restrict apps, however it doesn't really help as it it's the same PIN as the one used to access watershed programs.

      It would be better if VM provided the option to set different PINS for different functions (although that might make it more confusing for some people )