A report by four senators defends the need to activate parental controls by default on phone plans intended for minors.
This is the other major “tech” side of the strategy to keep children away from pornography. In their report of September 28, the four senators say they are in favor of the default activation of parental control on all telephone plans subscribed for a minor. This recommendation is one of twenty-three in the document.
This provision would come in addition to the reinforced control of the age of Internet users wishing to access an X site. The legislation has recently evolved to include a requirement addressed to hosts of content for adults: they must deploy a relevant system making it possible to ensure that only adults enter. Otherwise, offending sites can be blocked.
A default activation, based on two arguments
This default activation of parental control on subscriptions, if they are for minors, is defended by two arguments in the report. The first is that the tools exist, but parents ignore them or don’t use them enough. The second is that children have access to a smartphone earlier and earlier and more and more of them have one.
Based on a Médiamétrie study conducted in 2019, the report notes that the age of acquisition of the first phone is 9 years and 9 months. Between the ages of 11 and 14, 65% — two-thirds — of children have a smartphone. They thus have free access to the net, the parents not being able to control in the same way as if it is a fixed PC enthroned in the middle of the living room.
Minors are also present en masse on social networks (50% of 11 to 14 year olds and more than 70% of 15-16 year olds, according to Sophie Jehel, lecturer at the University of Paris 8). But, says the report, the vast majority of confrontation with sexual images is done via a smartphone “, via X sites, social networks, messaging and hacking sites.
In addition, the rapporteurs note, still referring to the 2019 Médiamétrie study, that more than half of parents of children under 15 do not use any means of controlling their child’s Internet browsing. From this double observation was therefore born the feeling that it is necessary to activate the basic parental control and not to rely on the parents.
The report notes that a new law, passed in 2022, requires the installation of parental controls on devices by default, but this is optional (it must be activated during the first configuration of the product, but you can pass outraged). In addition, it focuses on future terminals. The senators consider that this text goes in the right direction and that we must go further.
The French Telecoms Federation, which brings together Orange, Bouygues Telecom, SFR (and therefore their mobile activities, including their low-cost solutions such as Sosh or B&You), has indicated that ” all operators include parental controls in their offers ” and ” offer parental control tools when subscribing to family accounts. »
” The ISPs allow you to configure three types of profile: child, teenager and adult. With the child profile, intended for at least 10 years old, the parent selects the sites to which he can have access (white list). With the teen profile, the user has access to all websites except those that the parents have excluded (blacklist) “, comments the report.
It could therefore be on this basis that this default parental control could be instituted, in the telephone subscription. It is assumed that its deactivation, if possible, could only be done by using the customer account of one of the parents, by entering a password beforehand. Unless this control can be lifted only at the time of majority.
