After the National Assembly, it is now the Senate that has adopted the obligation for social networks to verify the age of their users.
The final adoption of this text, the date of entry into force of which is not yet known, will impose stricter rules concerning age verification by social networks, which already theoretically exists. But above all, users under the age of 15 will no longer be able to register without parental consent.
The spirit of the law
There was not a great suspense at the time of the vote by the Senate of the text carried by the presidential majority. The day before, the National Assembly had already adopted the text unanimously, after consensual debates. And, unsurprisingly, the Senate in turn voted on the text without making any changes, which therefore earned it final adoption. All that remains is to obtain the agreement of the European Commission to be able to officially promote the new rules, which the platforms concerned will have one year to apply.
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The objectives defended by this concept of ” numerical majority » are not very original: it is a question of protecting the youngest against the dangers of early and untrained access to the Internet. We hope in this way to prevent them from being exposed to cyberbullying, pornography, or even the addictive methods of social networks. And if the objectives of this text have an air of deja-vu, it is because they are. It was in 2018 that the concept of digital majority, placed at 15, was introduced in France. This extended beyond social networks, since it was the age from which a user could accept the collection of his personal information without the consent of his parents. Only, you must have realized, the good intentions of parliamentarians were not enough to move social networks. So, we had to find ways to motivate them.
And in practice, how does it work?
According to the own rules of the social networks, it is in principle not allowed to register before the age of 13. A rule whose respect is ensured by the honesty of those who register when they themselves indicate their age, and which is therefore at least imperfect.
So, to leave no room for interpretation, the bill adopted today will create an obligation for the services concerned to verify the age of their users by means of “technical solutions in accordance with a reference system drawn up by Arcom, after consultation with the CNIL”. If the absence to date of a ” technical solution ” complying with these criteria has been noted, this will therefore not have prevented the text from being adopted.
Finally, created or existing accounts belonging to children under 15 must obtain parental consent to be activated. An agreement which can also be withdrawn at the request of one of the parents.
With fines that can go up to 1% of the company’s global turnover in the event of non-compliance, and a history showing that this type of fine was more than credible, the major social networks should this time, really take this obligation seriously.
Source : The world, BFM TV
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