France leads the way in protecting children from online porn

France is set to introduce new age verification requirements to protect children from viewing online pornography.

It will become the first country to require a “digital certificate” – similar to those used by banks – to prove that a user is not underage.

Last year, the French Senate released a shocking report which revealed that a monthly average of 2.3 million visitors to online porn sites in 2021 were minors.

‘End this scandal’

Children are banned from accessing online pornography in France but users only need to click on a button to indicate that they are over 18. According to studies, the average age of children accessing pornography is eleven.

Minister for Digital Transition and Telecommunications, Jean-Noel Barrot, said he intends to “end this scandal” and that pornography sites will have to comply with the law or “risk seeing distribution prohibited”.

The minister hopes that “2023 will see the end of access to pornographic sites for our children” adding that the age system will “work a bit like the verification requested by your bank”.

Neil Thurman, Communications Professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, said: “I can see some countries following France’s lead, once we’ve got some evidence about how effective such legislation is.”

UK

In the UK, age verification checks were approved under the Digital Economy Act 2017, but plans to implement them were abandoned in October 2019.

A form of the checks is now expected to be introduced as part of the Online Safety Bill.

But Lord Curry of Kirkharle recently urged Peers to tackle the Bill’s “vague” definition of pornography, and pressed them to amend the legislation so that regulations outline “appropriate” age-verification systems, instead of leaving it to porn sites.

The Peer wrote: “One of the excuses offered for this baffling decision was that the issue would be subsumed within the new Online Safety Bill. But this means that children have been denied a vital protection from the horrors of online pornography for five years.”