France is set to announce new measures this week to prevent minors from accessing pornographic websites, in the latest round of a years-long battle to protect children from explicit material.
“I plan to end this scandal,” Digital Affairs Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told the Parisien newspaper on Monday.
French data protection and media regulators Cnil and Arcom will announce their latest proposals to control porn websites that are theoretically subject to a 2020 law requiring age verification.
Porn websites vs the law
Previous efforts have been hampered by privacy and technical issues, as well as court actions by websites.
To his frustration last September, a Paris court ordered Arcom to participate in mediation with several porn websites including the market leader Pornhub, in an effort to block it.
Under the new proposal, people who want to access explicit material must download a phone application that provides a certificate and a digital code, Parisien reported.
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The code will be needed to access porn websites in a system “that will work like a check from a bank when you buy something online,” Barrot told the newspaper.
“2023 will mark the end of our children accessing porn sites,” he said.
President Emmanuel Macron, who is married to former school teacher Brigitte Macron, promised to make protecting children from porn a priority during his re-election bid last year.
‘Hell Behind the Screen’
In November, it launched the Child Online Protection Laboratory, an initiative that aims to bring together industry giants and researchers to find ways to protect minors online.
In September of last year, a report entitled “Hell Behind the Scenes” by French senators concluded that there is a “massive, regular and toxic” viewing of porn by children.
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The report found that two-thirds of children aged 15 or under have viewed pornographic content.
The French production industry has been plagued by a series of sexual assault cases in recent years where women have come forward to claim rape, harassment and manipulation by directors and fellow actors.