DUBLIN — A representative of Irish media regulator Coimisiún na Meán told legislators that Ireland and other EU states are preparing to expand enforcement of age verification regulations to include smaller adult sites, British newspaper The Times is reporting.
The paper quotes Digital Services Media Commissioner John Evans as telling members of Ireland’s lower house of Parliament, “If you come down hard on a few platforms, users, including minors, will simply move to smaller ones. So we and many other digital services coordinators are mapping below-threshold pornographic service providers and will tackle those at a national level.”
As XBIZ reported earlier this year, Ireland’s Online Safety Code came into force in July. It includes a provision requiring adult sites headquartered in Ireland to implement age assurance measures beyond self-declaration.
Sites based elsewhere in the EU fall under the purview of the European Union’s Digital Service Act (DSA). Digital service coordinators in member states cooperate to enforce DSA rules, including age assurance requirements.
While the European Commission has initiated formal proceedings against several adult sites for suspected breaches of DSA rules, the focus has heretofore been mainly on higher-volume sites, especially those designated as “Very Large Online Platforms” (VLOPs), which reach at least 45 million monthly active users and are subject to more stringent regulations — though some targeted platforms have challenged that designation.
The plan to expand enforcement in Ireland and elsewhere echoes a September announcement by French media regulator Arcom that it plans to escalate enforcement of AV rules to include smaller adult sites.
Some Irish legislators in the meeting reportedly called for stricter age verification laws, citing France’s Law Aiming to Secure and Regulate the Digital Space (SREN) as a model. Arcom has been aggressive in enforcing domestic AV rules against sites based in other countries, resulting in ongoing legal wrangling around the question of whether individual EU nations have jurisdiction when it comes to AV requirements. In September, however, an advocate general of the European Union’s Court of Justice advised the court, in a nonbinding legal opinion, to rule that France can require pornographic websites based in other EU states to implement age verification in accordance with French law. A final decision is pending in that case.
“There is a significant amount of enforcement activity under way on age verification and pornographic services,” Evans told the Irish parliamentarians. “We are hopeful we will see changes soon.”