Doing homework or finding out who your favorite actor is can be more complicated for Internet users under 15 years of age. A text, which has not yet been debated in the Senate, proposes blocking access to social networks for those under 15 years of age, which arouses the concern of social networks, but also of other platforms that could be affected, such as Wikipedia . Wikimedia France, through its president, explained to Tech&Co that it feared the imposition of “an online age verification in a way that would threaten [la] privacy and [la] security” Internet users.
questionable definition
If it still has to go through the Senate, the “bill aimed at establishing a digital majority and combating online hate”, led by the leader of the Horizons deputies Laurent Marcangeli, was already approved by the National Assembly on 2 March first. reading. Its objective is to reduce the exposure of minors to hate, pornographic or disinformation content on the Internet, while the average age of registration on a social network is 8 and a half years, according to a survey carried out by the CNIL in 2020.
At the bottom of the problem is the way in which the text defines a social network in its article 1, as “any platform that enables end users to connect and communicate with each other, share content, and discover other users and other content, across multiple devices, in particular through online conversations, posts, videos, and recommendations“. Participatory sites that have discussion forums like Wikipedia are therefore directly involved.
This definition “takes up, moreover, almost literally”, the one adopted by the European regulation on digital markets or Digital Market Act (DMA), but without the conditions that caused Wikipedia to be excluded from it, says Rémy Gerbet, director of Wikimedia. France association, which brings together the users of the participatory encyclopedia.
The leader points out that such a distinction is possible, while European directives, such as the one on copyright and related rights in the digital single market, have in the past excluded certain “information society services“, as “free software development and sharing platforms, non-profit scientific or educational directories, as well as non-profit online encyclopedias“.
For the association’s defense officer, Naphsica Papanicolaou, “a waiver request“from Wikipedia”is an alternative“, As in “At the European level, the encyclopedia is also regulated in the same way as the Big Techs due to its size and number of users, although the objective is not the same.“.
data threat
European legislation, enshrined in French law in 2018, had already raised the question of the “numerical majority”, leaving the possibility of setting it between 13 and 16 years. Below this age, parental consent was theoretically required to process a minor’s personal data, but the text then had no real practical application.
In its current version, the text completely prohibits access to social networks for minors under 13 years of age, and makes the registration of adolescents between 13 and 15 years old subject to parental authorization, the practical details of which have not been specified.
Among the possible solutions, the director of the Association e-Enfance Justine Atlan, questioned on Franceinfo at the beginning of March, cited “biometry that allows estimating the age of a person from a photo, identity document verification or proof systems by trusted third parties“.
For its part, Wikimedia France suggests instead of “Online age verification is done through existing tools and solutions, such as parental controls.“, through devices or browsers.
Without that, “mandatory age verification or guarantee would force the Wikimedia Foundation, the host and legal custodian of the encyclopedia, to collect much more user data than before to learn the age of readers“, advances Rémy Gerbet. He regrets that this measure exposes”adults and children face new security and privacy risks“while weighing on many users”surveillance threats and political reprisals“.
Source: BFM TV
