France Will Block Access to Porn Sites for Minors: Digital Certificate Required to Watch

France will introduce an age check from September to block access to porn sites for minors. Minister of Digital Transition Jean-Noël Barrot has announced this.

“Our children will have no access to porn sites,” Barrot told Le Parisien newspaper. The measure will be proposed this week and will be implemented from September.

All adult sites will have to meet conditions; otherwise, the platforms will no longer be accessible. According to Barrot, France will be the first country in the world to propose such a solution. The age check will be done via a “digital certificate”. The aim is to safeguard the anonymity of internet users for such specific sites.

Currently, porn sites ask users to confirm their age by entering a date of birth or by clicking “I am of legal age”. Unfortunately, anyone can bypass this very easily. In France, children are, on average, eleven years old when they discover digital porn for the first time. Barrot calls that “a disgrace”.

The UK is also trying better to filter access to porn with online safety laws. The law is currently being discussed in parliament. In addition, the government wants to require sites to use reliable technology for age verification.

In Louisiana (USA), a copy of an ID has been required since January 1. And that for access to websites where at least a third of the content is “harmful to minors”.

While there is a consensus to make it more difficult for minors to access pornography, the various plans globally run into the problem of personal data protection.