The Government has proposed to protect minors on the Internet. And among the objectives of this proposal is to limit minors’ access to online porn. Therefore, the executive is studying require identification to access adult content on the Internet through the national identity document.
It is still a proposal in an early phase, without specifying the technical details of how this task will be carried out. Many European countries have tried this task without successlike the United Kingdom, which in 2017 became the first country to pass a law requiring the implementation of an Internet age verification system.
Under their law, websites that published pornography for commercial purposes would have had to implement a “robust” age verification system to prevent minors from accessing their sites. Nevertheless, this plan was eventually abandoned in 2019. Its latest proposal, which dates back to December of last year, seeks to limit adult content, asking the user to provide a credit card, something that is only available to people over 18 years of age. It is also not implemented today.
In the European Union there is nothing concrete either. The largest porn sites, such as Pornhub or XVideos, are obliged to prevent European minors from accessing their content under the Digital Services Act (DSA)but There is no specific ID verification system active, much less through the DNI.
The Government’s idea to limit porn involves an electronic certificate and an app
As we say, there is nothing concrete regarding how the Government of Spain is going to implement this verification system to access porn websites, and if it will ever do so. At the moment he is considering several options.
One of them is develop an app which will function as a digital certificate issued by the National Currency and Stamp Factory that verifies that the user is of legal age. Similar to the one used to make transactions online, but without so much personal data, since it would have the peculiarity that it will be anonymous for the adult website specifically. In addition, the website may issue a QR code for the user to confirm that the user is eligible to access a porn website, which would replace the “I am currently of legal age” with a certificate verification.
The idea is to have everything ready for summer. The system would have more applications than just to access adult websites, it could It can also be used to prevent a minor under 14 years of age from registering on a social network.For example.
For now we will have to wait to see if this system is definitively implemented, and above all, the technical issues that arise from it. And most importantly: if beyond the large providers of adult porn content, it also applies to smaller sites that, generally, are outside the jurisdiction of the major European countries. However, one thing is clear, the law is made, the trap is made. And the Government’s task is going to be titanic in this regard.