Age Verification in France

Two French campaign groups are suing the main ISPs in France, demanding the total block of several adult sites that they consider too accessible to minors.

The groups suing top French ISPs SFR, Orange, Bouygues Télécom, Free, Colt Technologies Services and Outre mer Télécomare are called e-Enfance (e-Infancy) and La Voix de l'Enfant (The Voice of the Child).

The ISPs were asked to appear next Thursday, September 9 in front of the Paris Judicial Court.

The lawsuit is proof that the French anti-porn groups intend to restrict access to adult content in that European market. Earlier this year, supporters of France's controversial age-verification law had claimed that they knew it was impractical and considered the passage of the measure as "symbolic."

ISP Orange told Le Figaro that they will "abide by the decision of the court and would shut down these sites speedily if that's what we are asked to do. But in the absence of a judicial decision, we apply the rules of net neutrality and freedom of expression"

The French parliament has agreed a new law requiring age verification on pornographic websites to prevent access by children under 18. The censorship law has the support of President Emmanuel Macron, who called for such a measure in January.

The French law gives sites discretion to decide how to perform that age verification.

The law gives French regulators the power to create a blacklist for overseas sites that don't comply with the new rules. If a site doesn't respond to a warning from French officials, they can ask the Paris Court of Justice to send an order to telecom operators to block the access to these sites from France.

A major sticking point in the UK's failed age verification law was privacy. Critics pointed out that it wasn't a great idea to force adult consumers to turn over their credit card numbers to porn sites that might not have the strongest privacy protections. It's not clear what privacy protections will be offered to consumers under the French law.

In order to enforce the law, the French audiovisual regulator CSA will be granted new powers to audit and sanction companies that do not comply -- sanctions could go as far as blocking access to the websites in France with a court order.

The Senate has already voted on the bill. Following an agreement between senators and lawmakers from the lower house National Assembly, a final vote will be held again in the Senate where the bill is expected to pass.

French President Emmanuel Macron has said that he will legislate if necessary to get parental controls in place to block kids from porn. He said in a speech to UNESCO:

We do not take a 13-year-old boy to a sex-shop, not anything goes in the digital world.

We will clarify in the penal code that the simple fact of declaring one's age online is not a strong enough protection against access to pornography by minors.

The measure will give the websites a period of six months to set up parental control by default . I know it hurts a lot of platforms, a lot of digital operators, but if in six months we have no solution, we will pass a law for automatic parental control.

Macron's reference to age 13 is not casual, because that is reportedly the average age of access to erotic content for the first time in France.