The Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority (Arcom) published the final version, on Friday, October 11, of the long-awaited rules that establish how pornographic sites must verify the age of their visitors. The publication of this technical reference by the media police gives publishers three months to comply with the law, leaving them some freedom during a second three-month period.
Since the domestic violence law of 2020, publishers of adult sites can no longer simply ask their visitors to certify on their honor that they are indeed adults: they must, to prevent minors from accessing pornographic content, implement verification tools. the age.
Tools, but which ones? Since then, the publishers of free porn sites and the authorities have passed the buck, the former arguing that there is no simple solution. To try to answer this question, the law aimed at securing and regulating the digital space, strengthening the powers of Arcom in the fight against non-compliant sites, forced the media police to publish a technical repository on the prerequisites of the age verification systems implemented by publishers. .
An expected text
If Arcom expects the publishers of pornographic sites to comply with the law within three months, the latter will benefit, for three more months, from a transitional period during which they can content themselves with verifying the age of their visitors by requesting registration. of a bank card. A solution considered imperfect, which has been the subject of numerous discussions, but which, if accompanied by double authentication, such as that offered by banking applications, will be temporarily accepted.
After this period, that is, from April 2025, pornographic sites must offer tools considered safer and more reliable, which will respect a series of standards regarding reliability and protection of private life. First requirement: these tools must be managed by an independent service provider and not by the editors themselves. Which is regretted by some porn industry giants who have developed (or are trying to) their own age verification tools.
Arcom then reminds that the tools used must guarantee that minors cannot provide falsified majority evidence, such as images generated by AI or montages. Finally, every site must offer at least one age verification solution. “in double anonymity” – a method that allows resorting to an intermediary (bank, telephone operator), without the pornographic site knowing the identity of its visitor and without the intermediary knowing that its client is consulting a pornographic site.
In case of failure to comply with their obligations, sites can, in theory, be subject to sanctions by Arcom, which, since the SREN law, has seen its powers strengthened. You now have the possibility of requesting the blocking of a site without resorting to a judge, although, after the skirmish between France and Brussels, the procedure could be longer and more complex if the site in question is legally installed in another European country.
Until then, and based on the 2020 law, several blocking requests targeting porn sites that do not verify the age of their visitors are still being considered before French courts.
