France’s Arcom Has Announced the Latest Age Verification for Adult Sites

France’s audio-visual and digital communication regulator, Arcom, has officially announced a Technical Reference on Age Verification aimed at preventing minors from accessing online pornography. This is part of the SREN law that went into effect in May 2024. That law gives Arcom the ability to penalize pornographic websites failing to implement what, in law, would oblige them to limit access by minors.

SREN specifies age verification systems that producers of pornographic content must implement to prevent underage viewers from accessing adult material. To be compliant, Arcom had the mission of developing a benchmark that would detail the minimum technical requirements for such systems. It is within such a context that the benchmark, first open for public consultation and later adopted by the NCIT, provides France with a formal framework for age verification methods.

France Institutes Stricter Age Verification for Online Porn Material

Arcom unveiled new age verification standards on October 9, 2024, designed to prevent minors’ access to online pornography by reliable measures of age control and by emphasizing user privacy. The French regulatory authority partnered with age assurance vendors in developing age-control technologies. These include biometric verification capable of preventing minors from bypassing safeguards.

The pornography sites will have three months to adapt to the new regulation if they do not want to be penalized. Arcom acted in urgency for a study that disclosed that 2.3 million minors visit adult websites every month. Also, it was reported that the figures of underage visitors to adult websites highly increased within the past five years. The company stated its expectations through the Technical Reference document that indicates what is expected for compliance and how to check if it is compliant, as well as how to guarantee proper age verification without breaching the users’ privacy.