Porn websites must be able to verify users’ ages or face being blocked within days under new rules in France which come into force after a years-long battle between operators and authorities.
Among the new requirements is to offer at least one ‘double blind’ option for users to prove their age without revealing their identity.
Sites already offering verification using a credit card have a grace period until April 11 to put in place their ‘double blind’ checks.
These entail the user uploading an identity document to one service, which then sends confirmation they are old enough to visit the site to the porn provider without revealing the user’s identity.
This niche is being targeted by small firms selling the service to big platforms, with several start-ups offering the service.
Arcom’s regulation ‘has been a real boost’ to the still-emerging sector, said Jacky Lamraoui, head of French startup IDxLab.
The firm’s ‘Anonymage’ service is already being used by around 20 sites, all of them adult platforms.
Among them is French porn site Tukif, which turned to IDxLab and other verification providers after a court ordered it blocked in October.
‘It’s a mostly good law, but the problem is the way it’s enforced,’ said Tukif manager Jerome, who declined to give his last name.
Porn websites must be able to verify users’ ages or face being blocked within days
He claimed Tukif was the only free French porn site currently verifying users’ ages.
Jerome complained that age verification was costing his site ‘one or two (euro) cents per visitor’.
He added that age verification was also turning some users away from centralised porn sites to less regulated social media platforms such as X or Reddit, which do not have to verify ages.
‘Since November, less than five percent of users arriving at the verification system come out verified on the other side,’ Jerome said. ‘It’s killed traffic to our site’.
For the coming months, competitors from within the European Union enjoy an advantage, as the age check rules only apply to French and non-EU adult services.
Arcom is still putting in place procedures for notifying other governments that sites based in their countries are not fulfilling French law before blocking them altogether.
EU adult sites will however be expected to comply with the French law in the future.
Aylo, the parent company of major porn sites Pornhub and Brazzers with an office in Cyprus, told AFP in December that it was ‘aware of the new rule and… will always comply with the law’.
But it added that the French rules would likely prove ‘ineffective’ and ‘dangerous’ for users’ security and privacy.
Beyond diverting users to other platforms, France’s rules could add to the growing demand worldwide for virtual private network (VPN) services.
France’s rules could add to the growing demand worldwide for virtual private network (VPN) services
A VPN creates ‘a tunnel between the source and the destination’ of internet traffic, said Ivan Rogisart, a cybersecurity specialist at cloud security provider Zscaler.
Using one can prevent intermediaries such as internet service providers (ISPs) from seeing the content of internet traffic, as well as allowing users to change their IP address, browsing as if they are in another location or country.
Worldwide, around 28 percent of internet users aged 16-64 were using a VPN in 2023, according to specialist analytics site DataReportal, while consultancy Global Market Insight expects the sector to grow to $350 billion in 2032, up from $25 billion in 2019 and $45 billion in 2022.
VPN subscriptions and usage have especially surged in the US, where almost one-third of states attempt to control access to adult sites.
‘It’s a real loophole’ in such efforts, said IDxLab’s Lamraoui, predicting that ‘some traffic will turn to VPNs’ in France as well.
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