Internet News

Members of the French National Assembly's law committee have unanimously green-lit draft legislation to allo the state to control the ability of parents to post pictures of their children on social media.

Bruno Studer, an MP from President Emmanuel Macron's party who put the bill forward, said in an interview. On average, children have 1,300 photos of themselves circulating on social media platforms before the age of 13, before they are even allowed to have an account, he added.

So-called sharenting (combining sharing and parenting, referring to posting sensitive pictures of one's kids online) constitutes one of the main risks to children's privacy, according to the bill's explanatory statement. Half of the pictures shared by child sexual abusers were initially posted by parents on social media.

The legislation adopted on Tuesday says that both parents would be jointly responsible for their offspring's image rights and shall involve the child ... according to his or her age and degree of maturity. In case of disagreement between parents, a judge can ban one of them from posting or sharing a child's pictures without authorization from the other. And in the most extreme cases, parents can lose their parental authority over their kids' image rights if the dissemination of the child's image by both parents seriously affects the child's dignity or moral integrity.

The bill still needs to go through a plenary session next week and the Senate before it would become law.

The Culture Committee of France's National Assembly voted last week to expand the age verification requirements already mandated for adult content to several popular mainstream social media platforms.

The French lawmakers voted in favour of requiring social media platforms to block access to under 15s, unless they have permission from their parents.

The reasons given by the committee for last week's hearing were to examine a proposed law establishing a "digital age of majority" of 15 and to "fight online hate."

The bill was put forward by MP Laurent Marcangeli, a member of parliament from President Emmanuel Macron's allied party Horizons, and was endorsed by the committee on Feb. 15.

Infringing social media companies, the Politico report noted, will face fines of up to one percent of their annual global turnover. Technical solutions to verify users' ages would need to be rubber-stamped by the audiovisual and privacy regulators -- Arcom and CNIL -- and Arcom would be empowered to sue non-compliant companies.

The bill now heads to a plenary session and to the Senate.

According to a French government source, CNIL and Arcom will soon be releasing age verification technical guidelines that will "frame the minimum criteria" for "pornographic websites" to comply. It appears that France will allow payment card verification and face scanning for age (with an unlikely promise of not surreptitiously using facial recognition at the same time) in the short term whilst waiting for a more complex technical solution being suggested by CNIL.

French Digital Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told the parliamentarians that a system of "double anonymity" for porn site age verification would be tested at the end of March with a few adult companies, which he did not name.

Two pending Supreme Court cases interpreting a 1996 law could drastically alter the way we interact online. That law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, is often disparaged as a handout to Big Tech, but that misses the point. Section 230 promotes free speech by removing strong incentives for platforms to limit what we can say and do online.

Under Section 230, platforms generally may not be held liable for the content posted by users. Without this protection, important speech such as communication about abortion, especially in states where abortion is outlawed, could be silenced. Movements like #MeToo and #BLM may not have been able to catch on if platforms were worried that they'd be sued, even improperly, for defamation or other claims. People could have found their voices censored, especially when talking about ideas that are under political attack today: race and racism , sexuality , and gender justice . The internet as we know it would be a very different place.

...see the full article from aclu.org

The lead Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) has adopted a draft mandate on the European digital identity (e-ID). The legislative proposal will allow EU citizens to prove their identity via mobile app and facilitate everyday situations such as dealing with public authorities or identification at airports.

Pirate Party MEPs made sure that the source code used for providing European Digital Identity Wallets will be open source, that non-users of the voluntary eID scheme must not suffer disadvantages and will be able to use alternative means of identification or authentication. They have not been able to prevent the mandatory acceptance of government browser certificates but there will be exceptions. Pirate MEPs have also been able to prevent more serious invasions of our privacy such as compulsory unique identification number throughout the EU. They keep pushing for more safeguards.

Pirate Party MEP Mikulás Peksa, Greens/EFA shadow rapporteur in the ITRE Committee, comments:

The European digital identity is cornerstone for modernization and digitization of the European economy and public services. Unfortunately, the European Commission had put a lot of problematic things in the proposal that inflated it with utter nonsense. Together with others, we Pirates have succeeded in removing most of these problems, such as a compulsory unique identification number. This is a big win for European citizens. We are sending a smart and safer instrument to the next negotiation. Thanks to the European digital identity citizens will not have to show a plastic card with all their personal details anymore. The European Digital Wallet will allow them to prove for example their legal age without disclosing other personal data, when buying alcohol or renting a car.

Pirate Party MEP Patrick Breyer, who is negotiating the law in the Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE) negotiates, comments:

We need to counter the risk that as the new eID is increasingly required, the anonymity online that protects us from profiling and identity theft is gradually eroded. Pirates therefore push via the Civil Liberties Committee for the addition of a provision ensuring that services are normally provided without electronic identification or authentication wherever reasonably possible. Another LIBE addition will be needed to ensure that the sensitive data of citizens in their 'digital wallet' will be stored exclusively in a decentralized manner on their own device, unless they choose centralized storage. Decentralized data storage protects our data from hacks and identity theft.

After the addition of provisions in the exclusive competence of other Committees (LIBE, JURI) to the ITRE report, the Parliament's mandate could be finalised as early as March. Trilogue negotiations with the Council will follow. Pirate Party MEP Mikulás Peksa will be among the negotiating team.

France's minister for digital affairs has announced that a government-issued digital certificate certifying a person's age will be necessary to view any adult content online in that country starting in September.

Minister for Digital Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot told newspaper Le Parisien that the new digital certificate will be unveiled this week, with full implementation planned for September.

Barrot warned all adult websites to comply:

under penalty of seeing the broadcasting prohibited on the national territory. France will be the first country in the world to propose a solution like this.

This technical solution that we are working on could be used to enforce the age limits that exist in our law, but which are not sufficiently respected online

However Barrot admitted that the specifics have not been finalized.

Critics have noted that implementation of the digital certificate could face complications relating to the issue of personal data protection .

Utah Republicans have introduced two ludicrous age verification bills that could have nationwide ramifications. State Rep. Jordan Teuscher and State Senator Michael McKelland introduced HB311 and SB152 respectively.

SB152 demands that beginning January 1, 2024, a social media company shall verify the age of all Utah resident wanting to use social media. If the platform determines that the person is a minor, defined by the bills as anyone under the age of 18, the proposed bill would require any social media company to give parents access to their kids' accounts.

State Sen. McKelland would like the minor's parent or guardian to be able to monitor all posts the Utah minor account holder makes under the social media platform account and all responses to those posts.

SB152 also demands that minors be prevented by the platform from accessing social media cannot between 10:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m.

Meanwhile HB 311 not only mandates age verification, but also forbids anyone under the age of 16 from having any social media accounts.