Age verification on the Internet – the Youth Protection Act is beginning to falter – News

  • The electorate will probably be able to express their views on new youth protection rules in the areas of film and video games.
  • According to the Pirate Party, it has submitted more than 50,000 signatures for a referendum to the Federal Chancellery.
  • Parliament passed a law last fall that would oblige online and video platforms to verify the age of all users.

Legend:

With the new Youth Protection Act, you will have to state your age on platforms like Netflix in the future. This is an encroachment on fundamental rights, says the Pirate Party.

Keystone/Christian Beutler

Parliament passed a law to prevent minors from watching violent or sexual films on platforms such as YouTube or Netflix.

But this caused severe criticism: the law causes massive collateral damage and is at the same time poorly made, according to a statement from opponents of the bill. “The digital political naivety of the administration and parliament has once again given us an unspeakable law.”

The Pirate Party is particularly bothered by the proposed age verification on Internet platforms. This can be easily circumvented and would mean that large Internet companies could collect even more data about users.

The Pirate Party speaks of massive encroachments on fundamental rights. “We would be the only country in the world with an ID requirement on the Internet,” said Jorgo Ananiadis, President of the Pirate Party. Together with his party colleagues, he defends himself against this with the slogan “No compulsory identification”.

Lots of last minute signatures

The law for providers of films, video games and corresponding internet platforms regulates how they have to label their products and what they have to do for age verification. If the sectors do not find a solution, the Federal Council can issue rules itself. Today, youth protection is largely a matter for the cantons.

Parliament passed the bill in the autumn session – the National Council by 131 votes to 56 with six abstentions, the Council of States by 40 votes to three with two abstentions. No votes came from representatives of the SVP and FDP parliamentary groups.

According to the President of the Pirate Party, the December referendum was on the verge of failure. Since the beginning of January, however, the topic has received a great deal of media attention. The committee received up to 5,000 signatures per day. “Now we are giving up and, according to our statistics, we have well over 50,000 signatures,” said Ananiadis.

With the referendums against, among other things, the Intelligence Service Act, the Gambling Act, the E-ID Act and the so-called “Lex Netflix”, the Pirate Party has already fought various digitization proposals from Parliament in recent years – sometimes with success.

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