AgCom did not specify which documents must be presented to verify age. The regulation accepts any system that respects the parameters of security, effectiveness and privacy.
Until now, anyone has had access to pornographic sites, gambling and betting platforms with a simple click. Even minors. In fact, just click “yes” on the “Confirm you are an adult” window that automatically appears on the page. Now the AgCom (Communications Authority) has defined the new regulation for age verificationwhich must be approved by the European Commission.
AgCom only provides guidelines, it will be up to the platforms to decide how to check the age of users. Among the options: Spid, the electronic identity card, digital identification app, and also, IT Wallet, the digital wallet planned for 2025.
As Massimiliano Capitanio, AgCom commissioner, explained to Fanpage.it: “Adult sites will have to make sure (really) that their users have over 18 years old”. So the user who wants to open a pornographic, betting or gambling site you will need to confirm your age with a document.
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The new regulation follows the Digital Service Act, inArticle 28in fact, the need for is reiterated protect minors from the danger of “being damaged in the age of physical, mental and moral development”. For this the platforms will have to pay more attention to age verification.
How age verification will work
The new regulation is aimed at platforms that offer content potentially dangerous or harmful to minors. Top of the list are pornographic, betting or gambling sites, but the new regulation could also be applied to video streaming sites, social media or online games that contain inappropriate content. As Capitanio explained: “Agcom will evaluate the possible extension of the criteria to all types of content and services that could harm the physical, mental or moral development of minors”.
AgCom does not specify which documents must be presented to verify age. The regulation accepts any system that respects the parameters of security, effectiveness and privacy. They will have to also be accessible and easy to useespecially for minors, explains AgCom.
The Authority has sent the regulation to the Union to be examined and evaluated according to European regulations. Age verification is expected to come into effect in 2025.
What’s happening in the United States
To understand better the impact that the new regulation will have you have to look at the United States. In January 2023, House Bill No. 142 came into force in Louisiana, according to the law all sites with at least a third of pornographic content are obliged to ask users for an identity document.
The introduction of age verification in Louisiana has caused an 80% drop of traffic in the portals that have implemented it. The cause is unclear. On the one hand there might have been a slowdown in traffic brought by teenagers, on the other hand it is possible that adult users have decided to Don’t use a portal that asks for login verification.
Solomon Friedman, founder of the Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners which took over Pornhub, criticized the new age verification systems. “In Italy we are following the direction of what we call “age gating”, that is, a monitoring system linked to an age limit for access imposed on each adult site”, he explained in an interview with Fanpage.it , “we believe that the solution is a technology that already exists today, advantageous from various points of view, which binds age verification at the base, from the device, not on the individual site“.
