Ban porn sites for minors like never before. The tug-of-war between France and the digital giants of hard content is unprecedented: for months the government has been working on an age verification system through a new tool that should come into force in the autumn. “It is urgent to defend our children from online porn images and finally enforce the law,” said French Digital Minister Jean-Noël Barrot last May 7. A law to enforce already exists, in fact.
The law that prohibits porn to minors
Since 1992, the French penal code has punished those who expose minors to pornography. In 2020, however, a more specific digital law was introduced, which came into force in 2021, which requires platforms to verify that users are of age. The only measure put in place so far is a self-certification button, which can be easily circumvented given that a report published at the end of May 2023 certifies that a third of French minors surf hardcore sites at least once a month. Many starting from 10-11 years old.
Porn sites taken to court
The report is signed by Arcom, the French public authority that regulates audiovisual and digital communication. Arcom is responsible for verifying that pornographic sites comply with the law, which happens very rarely. “The self-certification system is not enough”, says Laurence Pécaut-Rivolier, member of Arcom and president of the working group “Protection of the public and diversity of French society”. “The law imposes a filtering system but users to date are not filtered. So already in 2021 we called on the 15 most visited porn sites in France to take action, but the majority of them didn’t change anything. So we took 7 of them to court, for the first time. The first sentence is expected on July 7th”.
How to identify users of porn sites
Meanwhile, the Government is carrying out a bill on digital security to strengthen controls. Parliamentary discussions will resume in September and the new instrument introduced should enter into force as early as the autumn. There are two hypotheses in the field: the first – more probable – is that of requiring users who visit hardcore sites to certify their identity via an external platform, prior to accessing the site. The second, which is more difficult to apply, provides for the insertion of a credit card to access the sites, which in France cannot be issued to minors under 16 years of age.
Arcom France: “It is also necessary to talk about it in Italy”
“When we asked porn sites to intervene to protect minors, the reaction was initially negative,” explains Pécaut-Rivolier, “because according to them, given that no other country other than France is asking for measures in this regard, there is no problem. This is why it is important for us that we discuss it in other European countries, such as Italy, so that we can move forward together. Recently, however, we are no longer alone: we have discussed it with our Belgian counterparts and we hope to be able to broaden the discussion as soon as possible”.
The doubts of online rights associations
Meanwhile, there is debate among the associations that deal with the rights of online users. The fear is that this verification system introduced for minors on porn sites will be extended to other situations, such as access to social media, thus limiting the right – recognized by Europe – to online anonymity. “Using a digital identity to certify one’s age seems very problematic to us”, explains Bastien Le Querrec, member of the NGO active for online rights La Quadrature Du Net, “because behind a legitimate motivation, i.e. to protect children in their developmental stage, hides the end of the principle of online anonymity. After pornographic sites, the same identification tool could be applied and imposed on other sites, such as social networks which are already being discussed (France is thinking of introducing an obligation of at least 15 years to register on social networks, ed). A disturbing precedent because it involves the intrusion of personal data, while French and international law sanction the right to anonymity online”, concludes Le Querrec.
Source-tg24.sky.it