(Paris) France will impose an age certification device in order to block access to pornographic websites for minors, announced Sunday in The Parisian the Minister Delegate in charge of Digital.
“In 2023, it is the end of access to pornographic sites for our children”, declared to the daily this member of the government, Jean-Noël Barrot.
The details of this device must be presented within the week, for an implementation “as of September”, according to the newspaper.
All Internet sites for adults “must comply with it, otherwise the distribution is prohibited on national territory”, indicated the Minister Delegate. According to him, “France will be the first country in the world to propose a solution like this”.
The age certification must go through a “digital certificate” whose technical details are not yet finalized. The goal will be to preserve the anonymity of the Internet user from the point of view of websites.
“Telecom operators, who have the age of their customers, could for example be in the loop”, says The Parisian.
“This technical solution we are working on can be used to enforce the age limits that exist in our law, but which are not sufficiently respected online,” said Barrot.
Currently, pornographic sites ask the Internet user to certify his age by entering a date of birth, or even more simply by pressing a box to say “I am an adult”.
The United Kingdom is also trying to better filter this access, with its online security bill, under discussion in Parliament. The government wants to make it mandatory for websites to have reliable age verification technology in place.
In Louisiana, a state in the southern United States, a law requires since 1er January to present a copy of an identity document before being able to enter websites with at least a third of their content that is “harmful to minors”.
While the objective of making it more difficult for minors to access pornography is widely shared, the various projects to implement age verification around the world have come up against the question of data protection. personal.