The Montreal company that administers the site Pornhub has “absolutely ineffective” and so irresponsible practices in preventing the distribution of explicit videos without consent that the Privacy Commissioner is asking it to stop collecting intimate videos until the implementation of more serious measures.
At the end of an investigation started in 2020, the federal body also recommended that Mindgeek delete thousands of videos for which explicit consent was not obtained for each person who appears in the sequence.
Mindgeek, which was renamed Aylo in August 2023 following its acquisition by Toronto-based Ethical Capital Partners, has approximately 1,000 employees to manage content for “many of the world’s most popular porn websites, including Pornhub and Youporn.” », Underlines the investigation report.
Its revenues are estimated at more than 450 million US dollars per year.
The company claims to have already adopted new measures, including mandatory verification of the identity of people who upload videos to its sites. “It is important to note that the complaint that initiated the investigation dates back to 2015. Nearly a decade has since passed, during which time we have reviewed our processes, now ensuring we verify with an identity card. official identity the identity of any person who appears in content uploaded to our platforms,” Ethical Capital Partners spokesperson Sarah Bain said by email.
Images of a victim on 80 sites
The investigation began after a young woman realized that her ex-boyfriend had uploaded an intimate video of her, filmed in 2013, without her consent on Pornhub. “She felt pressure to make the video, but her boyfriend reassured her that it would remain private,” the investigation report states.
The young woman requested the video’s removal from Pornhub on several occasions, but for technical reasons the content was never completely removed, eventually ending up on more than 80 different websites, including Twitter, Pinterest and Reddit. Some of the sites displayed his full name, the name of his old university, and even his mother’s maiden name. “Several strangers from around the world, who had seen the video online, contacted the complainant on Facebook using the information in the title and tags of the video,” emphasizes the Privacy Commissioner.
“The complainant lived in constant fear and anxiety,” said Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne, concluding that Aylo violated federal privacy law. However, the Privacy Commissioner does not have the power to order Aylo to implement his recommendations, nor to impose a fine on it for this violation. However, Commissioner Dufresne did not rule out going to court.
PHOTO JUSTIN TANG, THE CANADIAN PRESS
The Privacy Commissioner, Philippe Dufresne
Its report notes that when the investigation began, MindGeek’s human moderators, who worked to ensure that no non-consensual videos were uploaded, were having to watch “up to 500 videos per day, which would correspond to more than 60 videos per hour,” notes the report.
97% of deleted content already online
The report also highlights that even after a complaint or request for removal, certain videos could remain online for up to two weeks at the time of the investigation. According to data provided to it by the company, videos that were the subject of takedown requests between January 2021 and January 2022 were viewed up to 11,000 times before being removed.
“In total, 97% of the removed content had already been posted, which means that only 3% of the content was intercepted thanks to MindGeek’s primary moderation practices,” emphasizes the Commissioner.
MindGeek’s practices were subsequently improved, notably after the release of a damning investigation from New York Times revealing the presence of videos of minors on Pornhub, in December 2020. People who now want to upload videos to Aylo’s platforms must have “verified user” status.
However, the Commissioner considers these new practices clearly insufficient.
The organization, which concludes that there is a “blatant lack of responsibility on the part of Mindgeek for the enormous quantity of sensitive personal information it manages”, recommends that the company submit to the monitoring of an independent third party appointed by the Commissioner. privacy protection until a solution is found.
A Montreal company more than Cypriot
The commissioner noted that Aylo tried to prevent the release of his report by going to court to challenge his jurisdiction, but without success.
The company notably argued that Aylo’s Montreal offices are “only a contractor” for the operators of the Pornhub and Youporn sites established in Cyprus, a country recognized as a tax haven.
“MindGeek has not presented any evidence that the directing mind of its international activities was separate or distinct from the senior management established in Montreal,” asserts the Commissioner. Out of 12 people interviewed as part of the survey, 10 were based in Montreal, 2 others in Cyprus.