The Government has decided to take action in the face of the more than worrying data of minors who freely access pornographic pages on the Internet. And it does so by approving in the Council of Ministers a report that establishes a roadmap to stop children’s access (even as young as 10) to content that damages their development, that encourages violence against women and that creates addiction.
This strategy is fundamentally based on enforcing national and European laws that oblige the platforms that host these pages to verify that the user is of legal age. These are regulations that were approved between 2018 and 2022. In addition, in February, another even clearer European one is planned, which establishes the obligation of companies to have an effective system for verifying the user’s age.
An effective system? Yes, because today what the platforms impose is an identity self-verification without any control: “Are you of legal age? Yes or no”. As the data makes clear, this system is totally ineffective, since kids pretend to be adults without any problem. Half of minors between 12 and 15 years old have accessed porn websites, and 25% do so before turning 12 years old. 70% of minors between 13 and 17 years old do it regularly, and 30% recognize that these pages are their source of knowledge about sexual life.
The industry claims that it cannot do anything if the user lies, but now the Spanish Data Protection Association (AEPD) has shown that it can be done. Faced with the excuses of the platforms, the AEPD got to work and, in a few months, has designed an age verification system that complies with all data protection regulations to guarantee anonymity and that has been “totally effective.” , as explained by the head of the AEPD, Mar España, during the presentation of the system last December. This system is not only valid to prevent access to porn websites, but also to prevent young children from entering social networks, such as TikTok (whose minimum age is set at 14 years).
This has been demonstrated by the Spanish Data Protection Agency together with the National Currency and Stamp Factory (FNMT), who are already working on an application that corroborates this and that they will make available to the industry for free starting in the summer.
From that moment on, “there will no longer be excuses, because it can be done and we have proven it,” said the director of the AEPD, Mar España, and the president of the FNMT, Isabel Valldecabres, who recall that if they do not With these verification systems, companies may be fined up to 3% of their annual turnover and, if they do not correct the system, their closure could be ordered.
What does this verification system consist of? The application, which is being designed by the FNMT and which has already been tested on mobile phones, computers and video game consoles, consists of content providers installing an age verification system that forces the user who wants to enter social networks or dangerous content to download an application that, either through a QR, password or other mechanism, gives you access to them.
This type of certificate would work in a similar way to the electronic certificate that is usually used to carry out online transactions and would also be issued by the National Currency and Stamp Factory based on an official document such as the DNI, passport or driver’s license. But with the particularity that it would be anonymous: it only proves that its owner is over 14 or 18 years old and does not share more user data with the content provider than their name, surname or exact age. This prevents mass profiling or unnecessary data collection and processing.
According to the Government, it is a pioneering initiative in Europe, although other countries such as the United Kingdom and France are implementing similar systems.
The implementation of this verification system will go hand in hand with other measures that the different ministries will implement. Thus, the Childhood and Youth Department, for example, will bring together 50 experts in childhood, the Internet and pornography this quarter to design the necessary measures to protect minors, which could culminate in a comprehensive law for the protection of children on the Internet. . And, of course, in awareness campaigns, especially for families and minors about the use of technologies.
