The digital subsidiary of the La Poste group, Docaposte, announced on Friday that it was testing a solution aimed at providing secure proof of age, for guarantee access to adult sites for adult users exclusively.
To prevent young people from accessing pornographic sites and guarantee the anonymity of those who browse there, Docaposte is testing a unique solution within the Child Protection Laboratory, supported by the government. It must respond to three major challenges: the protection of minors, respect for the privacy of users, and an open system offering various means of identification.
The platform, made up of a mobile application and an internet interface, must ensure double anonymity, without transmission of sensitive information, with sovereign hosting in data centers located in France.
Users will have multiple ways to prove their identity
Docaposte’s age verification solution appears to have several advantages. First, it guarantees double anonymity, ensuring the security and absence of traceability of the sites visited. Concretely, the internet platform acts as an intermediary. It confirms age without disclosing personal information, while the mobile app retrieves anonymized proof of age. This approach in any case respects the principles of the CNIL, the policeman of personal data, reconciling the protection of private life and the protection of youth.
Operated by Docaposte and hosted in France, the solution plans to guarantee data security via compartmentalized storage. The platform, designed with an open logic, gives users the choice between various means of identification. Users will be able to use La Poste Digital Identity, their identity document or by using a Mastercard bank card number.
But negotiations are being carried out to integrate new partners and thus broaden the identification options, to offer more flexibility to users. Docaposte today enjoys real credibility in the data protection landscape, in that the company is certified by ANSSI (National Agency for Information Systems Security), in addition to managing 45 million medical records, making it the leading operator in this area.
An experiment that could be extended to other areas in which minors are active
How does this work in practice? When a user wants to access a site requiring age verification, they connect to the Docaposte platform. She confirms her age to the porn site by granting access, transmitting only proof of age without disclosing any personal information. Likewise, the means of identification used does not know the site consulted with the proof of age, thus ensuring total confidentiality. On the Docaposte website, you can find more technical details on the solution, if you want to know more.
The experiment has been underway for several weeks with adult sites. It should end by the start of 2024, and finally offer a response to the authorities, who have been putting pressure on the large adult platforms for many months. Docaposte’s solution could also, if it arouses complete satisfaction from the government and ANSSI, be generalized and go beyond the scope of adult sites.
It could in fact meet the protection needs of minors in regulated areas such as video games or the online purchase of alcohol and tobacco. Faced with the rapid evolution of digital technology, Docaposte is determined, like its parent company La Poste, to serve the general interest, by promoting the development of ethical digital technology.
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