A confident announcement from the executive on a thorny subject. “In 2023, it’s the end of access to pornographic sites for our children,” said Sunday in the columns of the Parisian Jean-Noël Barrot, the Minister Delegate in charge of Digital. France is actually preparing to impose a “digital certificate” aimed at controlling age in order to block access to online pornography for minors, starting next September.
Details of the blocking system are to be revealed within the week. Why such a device? How will it be articulated? What can it change? 20 minutes takes stock of the subject, with the insight of Stéphanie Ladel, expert in addictology and specialist in supporting pornography addicts.
Why is such a device put in place?
Officially, access to online pornography for a minor under the age of 18 is prohibited. In the Penal Code, disseminating pornographic content to minors is punished by article 227-24 with three years’ imprisonment and a fine of 75,000 euros. In practice, a simple click on the home page of a pornographic site to certify that you are of legal age allows you to access the content.
A Senate report of nearly 300 pages entitled Porn: decor hell and published in September 2022 draws an alarming observation and places the French in fourth place worldwide among the biggest consumers of this type of content. Among the 19.3 million unique visitors to porn sites per month, 2.3 million are minors, a third of whom are under the age of 15. 80% of young people under the age of 18 have already seen pornographic content. According to an Ifop survey (207), quoted in the report, 63% of boys and 37% of girls aged 15 to 17 have already surfed on such a site, and 10% of boys do so at least once a week.
In this context, the executive wants to move, after several failures. As early as 2018, Mounir Mahjoubi, then Secretary of State for Digital Affairs, announced the establishment of a site access control for adults. “We will specify in our Penal Code that the simple fact of declaring your age online does not constitute sufficient protection against access to pornography by minors under the age of 15”, mentioned Emmanuel Macron, in 2019.
What is this new device?
To prevent minors from accessing pornographic content, the tool proposed by the government is a “digital certificate”. The National Commission for Computing and Liberties (Cnil) and the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (Arcom) should communicate the technical details within the week.
“A user of a pornographic site, when he wishes to access it, must certify his majority by clicking on this digital certificate. It will work a bit like the control requested by your bank when you make an online purchase, except that this certificate of majority will be anonymous”, has already detailed Jean-Noël Barrot at Parisianwho designed the system with Charlotte Caubel, Secretary of State for Children.
Because, for the government, the mission was full-bodied: to control the age of visitors while respecting the legislation on personal data. Hence the use of an interface other than the porn site itself. The executive explained that he wanted to involve telecom operators, who have the age of their customers, evokes the Parisian.
Last summer, the Cnil also recalled that no system based on sending proof of identity to the publisher of a pornographic site would be compatible with respect for privacy, such as the evoked BFM TV.
Will this new system be effective?
Since 2021, Arcom can go to court to request the blocking of pornographic sites that do not verify the age of Internet users. In fact, the control procedure that he must carry out is not possible. So, can this new system be effective? “I intend to uphold the law once and for all. The pornographic sites will have to comply with it under penalty of seeing the diffusion prohibited on the national territory ”, threatened Jean-Noël Barrot. However, the minister will have to convince pornographic platforms to integrate the new control system just for French Internet users.
“When it comes to pornography, suppliers try to free themselves from national legislation. The penal arsenal already exists, and pornographic sites have the obligation to remove people under 18 from the landscape. But this obligation is never respected, deplores Stephanie Ladel, expert in addictology. We cannot have the protection of our young people taken over by sites that are accustomed to not acting legally. To be effective, this type of system will have to be controlled “in the wake of its implementation, with heavy and emblematic controls and sanctions”, explains our specialist.
Other countries than France, which announces this new system as unique in the world, have tried to act on the subject. In the UK, an online safety bill is under discussion. In the United States, since January 1, Louisiana passed a law requiring you to present a copy of your identity card to access certain adult sites.