Italy is set to begin enforcing a new rule compelling all phone providers in the country to install porn-blocking filters on phones registered to minors. It’s the latest online age verification initiative to be implemented in Europe, where porn sites are coming under increased scrutiny by authorities concerned about children accessing them.
From today (November 21, 2023), Italian phone service providers will have to make the filters available on devices with SIM cards registered to anyone under-18 that can block content considered potentially harmful or unsuitable for minors. Content that needs to be blocked by the filters includes “full or partial nudity in a pornographic or sexual content, sexual accessories” and “sexually oriented activities”.
Content related to weapons sales, gambling, suicide and self-injury, “brutal violence”, the promotion of hatred and intolerance, using drugs, alcohol and tobacco, and the promotion of health-damaging practises, will also need to be blocked.
The Italian Communications Regulatory Authority (AGCOM), which gave the directive, said that it was made in response to “the growing concern linked to the digital practices of young and very young people”.
The enormous range of the content that legally needs to be blocked on the SIM cards, and the subjective nature of many of the banned categories, raises questions about how effectively it will be implemented and enforced. According to the directive, services such as virtual proxy networks (VPNs) that can be used to circumnavigate some blocks and hide the identity of users and devices, also need to be blocked by the filters.
The SIM card filters will be free to use. Although designed to be automatically added to SIM cards registered to people aged under 18, they can be used on phones registered to adults if a user requests it. Similar filters will also be able to be added to home Wi-Fi routers.
On Monday (November 20, 2023) the Australian government released a draft set of standards for cloud-based storage services partly in an attempt to crack down on the distribution of deepfake porn and other illegal or unethical sexually explicit content.
The new draft standards, which will go through a consultancy period, will require platforms such as WhatsApp, Apple iCloud and Google Drive to do more to eliminate such content from their platforms.
The standards outline that platforms will not have to breach encrypted messages in any crackdowns, but do more to identify non-encrypted allusions to potentially illegal content, such as emojis that can signify child porn.
Earlier this year Australian authorities rejected the introduction of stricter age verification processes for accessing online porn, saying they would not be logistically feasible yet.
Nonetheless, European countries such as the UK, France and Germany have pushed ahead with measures to shore up age verification processes for online porn.
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