2023-10-10 23:58:43
The National Assembly voted on Tuesday evening in new reading a bill aimed at better protecting the image rights of children in the face of the excesses of certain parents who expose them excessively on social networks. Assembly and Senate were unable to agree on this text, leading to this new reading in both chambers. The date of a new examination at the Palais du Luxembourg has not yet been set.
Supported by Macronist MP Bruno Studer (Renaissance), the text introduces the notion of the child’s “private life” into the definition of parental authority in the civil code, to underline the duty of parents to respect it. And specifies that the minor’s right to image is exercised jointly by both parents, taking into account the opinion of the child. If there is disagreement between parents, the text provides that the judge can prohibit one of them “from publishing or distributing any content without the authorization of the other”.
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In serious cases of violation of dignity, the individual, the establishment or the departmental child welfare service which took in the child or a member of the family may also refer the matter to the judge for purposes of be delegated the exercise of the child’s image rights. This law aims to “empower parents” but also to show minors that “parents do not have an absolute right over their image”, argues MP Studer.
The specter of child pornography
During the new reading, the deputies adopted against the advice of the government an amendment from the ecologist Jérémie Iordanoff in order to “allow the National Commission for Informatics and Liberties (CNIL) to take legal action to request any measure necessary to safeguard the rights of minors in the event of non-execution and failure to respond to a request for erasure of personal data.”
According to figures cited by parliamentarians and the executive, a child appears on average “in 1,300 photographs published online before the age of 13” and “50% of photographs exchanged on child pornography forums had been initially published by parents on their social networks.
Associations denounce abuses, such as those of family “vlogs” (video blogs) kept by parents racing for “likes” by exposing the privacy of their children, sometimes in search of advertising revenue. Even resorting to degrading scenes, such as those of the “Cheese Challenge”, viral on TikTok, consisting of throwing a slice of melted cheese in the face of a baby and filming its reaction.
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