Will France be able to protect children from accessing porn sites?
In France, more than 82% of minors have been exposed to adult content but now the government intends to ban access to porn sites for children once and for all. That's how. Facts, comments and problems
War is declared. France, after various attempts (always unsuccessful), claims to have a plan to protect children from accessing porn sites. According to the Minister of Digital Transition, Jean-Noël Barrot, it is in fact a plague that, starting from the age of 12, affects a third of the youngest.
Today, Barrot said , the conditions will be presented that porn sites will have to verify "seriously" about users (age in primis), under penalty of banning their diffusion throughout the country.
But how to do it?
WHAT THE SURVEYS SAY
As stated by the minister, according to a 2018 survey published on the French government website Je Protège Mon Enfant (I protect my child), almost 1 in 3 children has already been exposed to pornography by the age of 12 and 62% by the age of 15.
Furthermore, more than 82% of minors have been exposed to pornographic content and 44% of young people who have already had sexual relations declare that they have attempted to replicate scenes or practices seen in porn films or videos.
WHAT THE LAW PROVIDES
Currently, according to the legislation of France and most European countries, users must be 18 years old to be able to access pornography, however, there is no effective control mechanism and users can simply enter a fictitious date of birth on their screens.
A TRUSTED THIRD PARTY FOR CONTROL
The government's idea, therefore, is to impose once and for all on pornographic sites the obligation to verify the age of users through "a trusted third party," says Bfmtv . "For the user, it would be a question of registering with one of the many services that are targeting this juicy market, and then of sending an identity document or any other document that can establish his age".
In practice, when you connect to a pornographic site, the site has to ask the age verification service to confirm that the user has proved that he is of legal age.
According to the Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés (Cnil), this third party should even provide for two distinct operators: one to receive identity data and another to transmit them to the site.
ADVANTAGES
The main advantage of this system, explains the French broadcaster, is that in this way the user's identity is not transmitted to the pornographic platform because by connecting to the third party, the adult site does not receive any information about the user except if whether it is an adult or younger.
Already last July, the CNIL recalled that no system based on the transfer of an identity document directly to a pornographic site would be reconcilable with respect for privacy.
The Authority also advised against any tool based on the processing of biometric data (such as facial recognition) as it would involve unnecessary risks for personal data.
FEASIBILITY
As every time France has tried, the feasibility of such a proposal remains to be seen. Although Barrot said in an interview with Le Parisien that "in 2023, access to pornographic sites for our children will end" and that "France will become the first country in the world to adopt such measures", Bfmtv observes that among the challenges facing the government is that of “persuading thousands of platforms – often located abroad – to integrate this system exclusively for French users”.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/la-francia-riuscira-a-proteggere-i-bambini-accesso-ai-siti-porno/ on Wed, 08 Feb 2023 14:57:54 +0000.