Pornographic sites will soon have to tighten their age control. Some platforms have moved on, and that’s already a problem.
The sanction has fallen: after months of arm wrestling between pornographic platforms and ARCOM, the successor to the CSA and Hadopi has just won a major fight against French X. In a few months, it will be necessary to prove your majority before consulting an adult site.
Tukif gives in
However, the fight was serious. For lack of having found a secure regulatory system to filter out underage users, several pornographic sites risked closing for a few months, starting with the tubes, these free and accessible platforms without any other verification than the traditional one “I am over 18“. For several months, the future of certain sites was largely compromised, to the point of considering their blocking in France, after the seizure of several associations and a first injunction procedure pronounced by the CSA last December.
Among the platforms concerned, we could notably find some big names in free X, such as xHamster, Pornhub or Pornhub. After a controversial decision by ARCOM, however, some seem to have taken the necessary steps to remain in compliance with article 227-24 of the Penal Code, which intends to regulate the access of the youngest to online pornography. First on the list to take the lead, Porndig now displays an informative message on its homepage stating: “We will soon be obliged to verify the age of our visitors located in France. You can now verify your age with AgeVerif. It is currently optional but it will soon be mandatory”.
Four methods (for the moment optional) are currently offered to the Internet user. It is thus possible to enter a Credit Card Numberto scan a identity document (CNI, passport or driving licence), to take a webcam selfieor to submit a ticket AgeVerif valid.
Why has it already failed?
Controlling the age of people who want to access pornographic content is commendable, especially at a time when a few clicks on a smartphone are enough to access the platforms concerned. However, the methods deployed by ARCOM raise questions both in their ethics and in their real effectiveness.
The credit card and the identity document first, do not ensure that the person behind his screen is the holder of the document.
For its part, the selfie may quickly find its limits: how to tell the difference between a 17 year old minor and an 18 year old major ? Our tests with printed and on-screen photos have so far been conclusive, the site has always managed to recognize cheating attempts. But it’s a safe bet that the most resourceful will only take a few hours to find an effective subterfuge.
Finally, AgeVerif tickets are undoubtedly the most reliable method, provided you assume having to go to a tobacconist every month to recover the precious sesame, which for the moment has no other use than to access content. pornographic. Not very discrete. Especially since it remains easy for an adult to monetize these tickets.
Especially since for the most part, these verification methods also pose ethical problems, both in terms of the freedom to access pornographic content when you are of age, and in the sharing of sensitive data with sites not always known to shine when it comes to security. On this subject, AgeVerif promises that no document or information is stored online, and that everything passes through without being recorded. Only cookies on the machine officially allow the age verification to be kept, for a period ranging from one hour to… always.
Finally, note that despite all these verification methods, it is still very easy to circumvent the system. A simple VPN, or the fact of change your DNS (Domain Name System), which makes it possible to make the link between an IP address and a URL, would easily suffice to circumvent the French system.
The control of the identity of minors on phonographic sites therefore promises to be debated for a few more years, at least the time to find an effective and non-intrusive solution. For the moment, this is far from being the case.
By: Bitdefender
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