“Resolving once and for all the question of age verification on pornographic sites”: this is the objective detailed by Jean-Noël Barrot before French deputies on February 19.
During this hearing before the delegation for children's rights, the Minister Delegate for the Digital Transition explained the system that the government intends to experiment "at the end of March", a "double anonymity" which would protect the identity of Internet users using this process.
"Whoever provides the proof of majority - this can be a telecom operator, a digital identity provider or any other organization that can attest to a person's majority - does not know what it is going to be used for, and the site on which the certificate is used does not know the identity of the person", he justified.
The Penal Code prohibits minors from accessing pornographic content.
Until then, the publishers of these sites asked Internet users to confirm that they were of legal age by clicking on a button such as "I am 18 years old or older" to access the content.
But they can theoretically no longer be satisfied with this simple declaration since the law of July 30, 2020. Arcom (ex-CSA) now has the power to report to justice publishers who do not respect the obligation to protect minors, a procedure that can go as far as blocking the domain name of the site concerned.
The double anonymity process – supported by the National Commission for Computing and Liberties (Cnil) – aims to strengthen the blocking of X-rated sites for minors, while 62% of them said they had seen pornographic content before the age of 14, according to an OpinionWay study published in April 2018.
Age verification through a trusted third party.
© CNIL
"From a moral point of view, (this proposal) is not debatable: everything that is intended to protect minors from this type of content is important. On the other hand, the answer is technically inoperable", explains Frans Imbert-Vier, CEO of Ubcom, a Swiss cybersecurity consulting agency.
A process that can be "easily" circumvented
For the cybersecurity specialist, "all you have to do is use a VPN (a virtual private network known to be untraceable, editor's note) and connect to the site by pretending to be a resident of another country to override the law. The system will then be unable to geolocate the user's originating IP address."
Added to this is the fact that publishers of pornographic content do not intend to let it go: their sites generate strong audiences - several of them are among the 15 most visited sites in the world - and they will most certainly want them. keep one way or another.
This could go, for example, through "rebound technology", as explained by Frans Imbert-Vier: "Publishers - like the PornHub conglomerate which, with a dozen sites, has world leadership for the distribution of this type of content – will create new portal sites that will not be classified as pornographic, but through which content can still be accessed."
The use of double anonymity "can be easily circumvented", we also confirm to La Quadrature du Net.
Believing that this process "is the least intrusive solution to privacy", the association for the defense of freedoms on the Internet fears despite everything that it will lead to a "drift" which will make everyone's navigation a little less anonymous on the Web.
"The big problem is making the use of a digital identity compulsory to access these services. Little by little, French law is organizing the limitation or even the end of the anonymity on the Internet. Without a digital identity, it will not be possible to access these sites", explains Bastien Le Querrec, member of La Quadrature du Net.
And he adds: "There is a consensus that pornographic sites should not be accessible to minors, but the end pursued cannot justify the means deployed."
"Education" rather than "dumb and mean blocking"
The executive does not exclude that double anonymity will eventually be required for sites other than those of a pornographic nature.
"It's the most robust system to not only solve the issue of age verification on porn sites once and for all, but possibly to perform other age verifications on others in the future. services from which we want to protect our children", declared Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, without further details.
Could social networks be next?
"This technique of double anonymity is not generalizable to them. It is the free will of the publisher (Twitter, Facebook or even YouTube) which prevails in this case", nuance Frans Imbert-Vier.
The cybersecurity specialist also believes that the current process proposed by the government "is not the right one": "We are putting repression to limit consumption, and this authoritarian discourse masks the best solution: education in sexuality."
An approach joined by Bastien Le Querrec, for whom "prevention and education are necessary".
And the member of La Quadrature du Net asks: "Why don't we favor this more in favor of blocking stupid and nasty sites? Social issues cannot be settled by censorship."
In addition to France, the United Kingdom and the United States are also trying to tighten restrictions on pornographic content online.
Across the Channel, an online security bill is under discussion in Parliament, with the government wanting to make the installation of reliable age verification technology compulsory.
Across the Atlantic, a law requires since January 1 in Louisiana to present a copy of an identity document before being able to enter Internet sites with at least a third of their content "harmful to minors".
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