France has decided to impose an age verification mechanism to prevent minors from accessing pornographic sites, the Minister Delegate for Digital Affairs, Jean-Noel Barrot, announced Sunday.
In France, children's access to pornography will end in 2023, Barrot told the Le Parisien daily.
The newspaper indicated that the details of this mechanism will be announced during the current week and that its implementation will begin as of “September”.
Barrow stressed that all adult websites "must comply with this mechanism under penalty of being banned from broadcasting" in France, which would thus be "the first country in the world to adopt such a solution".
The age verification mechanism is based on a "digital certificate", the technical details of which have not yet been approved.
The newspaper pointed out the possibility of involving "companies that provide telecommunications services that have data on the ages of their customers."
The technical solution we are developing can be used to enforce age limitations that are already part of the legislation but are not often adhered to online, said Barrow.
Currently, porn sites only ask the user to enter his date of birth to allow him to browse, or even simply by clicking on the “I am an adult” field.
Britain is also seeking to find a solution to the issue through the Online Safety Bill before Parliament, which aims to require websites to adopt reliable technology to verify the ages of their choice.
In the southern US state of Louisiana, from January 1 the law requires the user to provide a copy of an identification document before being allowed to access websites the content of which is at least one-third deemed "harmful to minors".
The various projects in the world aimed at verifying age to prevent minors from entering pornographic sites collide with the issue of protecting personal data.