PARIS — In France, platforms from Instagram to Pornhub could soon have to check their users’ ages.
For two and a half years, Paris and pornography websites have played cat-and-mouse over age verification — now, the government and regulators plan to put an end to it once and for all. Lawmakers in the National Assembly’s culture committee also voted Wednesday to expand such requirements to mainstream social media companies.
“In 2021, 63 percent of children under 13 had an account on at least one social network … This is a violation of the general terms of use of the main platforms concerned, according to which registration is allowed from the age of 13,” argued Laurent Marcangeli, a member of parliament from President Emmanuel Macron’s allied party Horizons, who put forward the bill adopted Wednesday.
Age verification is one of the thorniest aspects of child protection online, which continues to flummox policymakers and internet companies on both sides of the Atlantic. In December, Meta’s global affairs chief Nick Clegg called for global standards.
France was one of the first countries to tackle the matter head-on in 2020 with legislation to force the porn industry to block online access to minors. (After an unsuccessful bid in 2019, the United Kingdom is now also trying to bring back age-verification requirements.)
On Wednesday, French MPs adopted legislation requiring social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and Snap to block access to minors under 15 — unless they have authorization from their parents — or face fines of up to 1 percent of their annual global turnover. Technical solutions to verify users’ ages would need to be rubber-stamped by the audiovisual and privacy regulators — Arcom and CNIL — and Arcom would be empowered to sue non-compliant companies.
The bill is not a done deal yet and still needs to go through the plenary session and the Senate — but French Digital Minister Jean-Noël Barrot has repeatedly said that age verification for porn websites was meant to also be expanded to mainstream social media platforms.
‘Double anonymity’
The 2020 legislation proved difficult to enforce because of privacy, technical and legal hurdles — but the planets are now starting to align against the pornography industry.
Adult websites have long argued, including in French courts, that the text cannot be implemented technically. On Tuesday, Barrot told MPs that a system of “double anonymity” would be tested at the end of March with a few unnamed companies.
Users prove their age on a yet-undetermined trusted third party — such as a telecom operator or a digital identity service provider — that would generate a token of sorts, without the provider knowing the token’s purpose. That token could then be used anonymously on porn websites. That system, Barrot added, is the best way to solve the age-verification stalemate for adult websites but also, “in the future,” for other types of platforms.
CNIL and Arcom are also expected to release long-awaited technical guidelines that will “frame the minimum criteria” that porn websites will need to put in place, a French official told POLITICO. Last week, Junior Minister for Children Charlotte Caubel told French TV that credit cards and facial recognition would do the trick.
A spokesperson for MindGeek, the parent company of Pornhub, RedTube and YouPorn, said in a statement that “it is vital that any age verification measures implemented preserve user privacy and are easy to use. All regulation must be enforced equitably and effectively across all platforms offering adult material.”
Paris has made child protection online a political priority, in a country where minors reportedly first visit porn sites, on average, at age 11. Last year, France was the first country to require smartphone and tablet manufacturers to give parents the option to control their children’s internet access. In the past few weeks, MPs have also put forward bills to protect children’s images online and to limit screen time.
