Italy’s regulator releases list of adult platforms covered by age verification law

Another domino in the global game of age verification for adult content sites is about to fall, this one in Italy. An announcement from Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni (AGCOM), Italy’s communications regulator, says that “the list of entities currently disseminating pornographic content in Italy has been published,” and that those named on the list have until November 12 to implement age assurance measures. Violators face fines of up to 250,000 euros (about 287,670 dollars).

The law and its accompanying amendment, the so-called Caivano Decree, dictates that “entities that distribute pornographic images and videos in Italy, regardless of their country of establishment, are required to verify that users are of legal age, ensuring a level of security appropriate to the risk and compliance with the minimization of personal data collected for this purpose.”

Companies named on AGCOM’s list include all the big players: Pornhub, Redtube, YouPorn (all operated by Canadian company Aylo), XNXX, Xhamster and a smattering of adult chat sites. In France and the U.S., Aylo has answered online safety laws by simply turning off access to the site in jurisdictions that impose certain age assurance requirements. Meanwhile, in the UK, it has agreed to comply, while casting doubt on the effectiveness of the Online Safety Act (OSA).

Law requires double-blind architecture, following France

AGCOM is in charge of establishing technical and procedural methods for age assurance (which includes age verification, age estimation and age inference technologies) that satisfy the Italian law’s requirements. Current language from AGCOM in the provision attached to Resolution No. 96/25/CONS requires “the intervention of certified independent third parties to provide proof of age, defining a process based on two logically separate steps: identification and authentication of the identified person, for each session of use of the regulated service.”

Agcom says this can be accomplished through proof of age apps that provide “double anonymity” – or, in the French parlance, the double blind mechanism, which compartmentalizes steps so that the age assurance provider doesn’t know what the proof of age is being used for (i.e. porn), and the proof provided to the website or platform does not contain any identifying data about the user beyond a yes or no on age.

Beyond that, the approach is “technology-neutral,” based instead on the following set of principles: proportionality, personal data protection, IT security, accuracy and effectiveness, accessibility and ease of use, inclusiveness and non-discrimination, user training and information, and effective management of user complaints.

An interesting provision requires that acceptable age verification systems will have to comply with both the European Commission’s guidelines for the protection of minors – and with its customizable “blueprint” or “white label” technology, “with the possibility, where necessary, of modifying and adapting the measure adopted.” That guides platforms to the Commission’s own tech, which is part of the wider European Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet rollout – and means vendors may have to tweak their solutions to line up with the EU’s vision.

AVPA argues for prosecuting violators, instead of blanket exemptions

As is the case elsewhere, the goal of Italy’s online safety legislation is to curb perceived harm online pornography risks visiting on minors’ “dignity and physical and mental well-being, constituting a public health concern.” Aylo, which has seen traffic to its flagship sites sag in the wake of age verification laws, argues that bans are just sending users to noncompliant sites.

However, in commenting on a recent piece in Biometric Update, the Age Verification Providers Association notes that those sites are supposed to be held accountable, too. “Aylo’s argument is essentially, ‘there’s a dive bar downtown which allows underage drinking – so instead of sending the cops to that bar, we should remove the requirement on all other bars to check the age of their customers’,” says AVPA’s Executive Director Iain Corby.

The physical analogue is often a useful tool in age verification debates. There are multiple metaphors that work: showing ID to get into a strip club; the shady bar drinkers flock to when their local goes corporate; the upper shelf of a magazine rack in a 1990s convenience store (and the VPN as the equivalent of shoplifting a copy to hide in the woods). The difference in most of these instances is liability: the shopkeep is easy to reprimand, the bar easy enough to shut down. Many noncompliant porn sites are hosted on foreign servers; finding and prosecuting them takes effort, while Aylo makes itself visible and available. There is some doubt as to whether such back-alley sites could ever amass the numbers Aylo’s sites have. But as long as they remain operational and noncompliant, critics of age assurance laws will be able to point to them as an undeniable example that regulators must work harder to even the playing field.

Article Topics

age verification  |  AVPA  |  biometric age estimation  |  double-blind age assurance  |  EU age verification  |  facial age estimation (FAE)  |  Italy