Digital identity and surveillance of private communications to combat access to sensitive content

2023-11-03 18:07:37

Several bills aimed at combating access to pornographic and child pornography content online are about to be voted on by the French and European parliaments. One intends to impose the use of digital identity to consult a pornographic site in order to ensure the majority of users. The other plans to analyze communications exchanged by private messaging with the aim of detecting sexual abuse committed against children.

A digital identity to consult a pornographic site

The law aimed at securing and regulating the digital space, known as SREN, which has not yet been completely voted on, is a catch-all text which ranges from the fight against child pornography to online scams. So many different themes addressed in this text but which converge towards the same objective: restricting anonymity online.

The bill recommends, among other things, blocking access to pornographic sites until the age of users has been verified. First of all, you should know that a law adopted in 2020 already requires such sites to have their visitors complete a declaration of majority, under penalty of blocking. But here it is, according to MP Marie Guévenoux (Renaissance): “Porn publishers have paid the best law firms on the planet to get around the law.” Indeed, when the sites in question are sanctioned, they take legal action which drags on, and during this time, their site remains accessible to the public. We must therefore consider other methods.

With the SREN law, a framework recommended by Arcom suggests going through a trusted third party (a professional authorized to implement electronic signatures) confirming that the user is of legal age. This trusted third party mechanism nevertheless requires the use of a state digital identity. Under the pretext of protecting minors from access to age-inappropriate content, this law forces others to use a digital identity.

For the moment, the government denies any intention to extend the application of this mechanism to other types of content than that of pornographic sites and online games. At the European level, a similar project also plans to further undermine the rule of anonymity on the Internet.

Private communications continuously analyzed to detect child sexual abuse

On May 11, 2022, the European Commission presented a draft regulation which aims to combat child sexual abuse. According to the proposal, communication services such as Gmail, WhatsApp and Telegram should analyze everything their users send to each other. The goal would be to detect photos and videos of sexual assaults committed against minors. The reporting obligation would fall on instant messaging services, which would send the information to a European center created for this purpose.

For once, all electronic communications of perfectly honest people would thus be monitored 24 hours a day, using technology that has not yet been determined. In any event, constant, untargeted spying on communications, without sufficient evidence of improper activity, would constitute an extremely serious invasion of privacy. Not to mention that the device could very quickly become ineffective. Indeed, criminals would probably find other ways to communicate if they realize that their exchanges are being monitored.

The draft regulation will be submitted to the European Parliament for a vote before August 2024.