French regulator releases technical reference on age verification for porn

France’s Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication, Arcom, has published its Technical Reference on Age Verification for the Protection of Minors from Online Pornography.

A release says that the French law known as SREN, which came into effect in May of 2024, enables Arcom to “sanction and administratively block pornographic sites that do not comply with their criminal obligation to prevent minors from accessing their content,” i.e. provide some form of age verification. As part of the law, Arcom was asked to adopt a benchmark that lays out “minimum technical requirements applicable to age verification systems set up to access services broadcasting pornographic content.”

As of October 9, 2024, a draft submitted for public consultation and subsequently approved by the National Commission for Information Technology and Civil Liberties (CNIL) has been adopted as the framework provided for by law.

Per the release, “its requirements concern both the reliability of user age control and respect for their privacy.” Age assurance vendors provided input to Arcom to present the benefits of their various technologies. Pornographic content providers have three months to achieve compliance by deploying rigorous age checks.

The full technical requirements, which are published in French, lay out the core problem in stark terms, referencing research that shows  “2.3 million minors visit pornographic sites every month” and that “the share of minors visiting ‘adult’ sites has increased by 9 points in 5 years, from 19 percent at the end of 2017 to 28 percent at the end of 2022.” The document broadly lays out age assurance and privacy requirements, as well as auditing and evaluation procedures for biometric age verification methods and other digital identity solutions.

Article Topics

age verification  |  biometrics  |  children  |  CNIL  |  digital identity  |  France  |  regulation