Starting today, November 12th, age verification is now mandatory for users connecting from Italy on more than 40 porn sites, at least in theory . The measure affects some of the most popular and well-known sites at the moment, including OnlyFans, PornHub, Redtube, and Xvideos. The measure was adopted by AGCOM and the government to reduce the spread of pornography among minors.
DOUBLE ANONYMITY
The system is based on the concept of so-called double anonymity , using a certified third-party body: the body knows who the user is who wants to verify his or her age, but does not know why, while the destination site knows that the user is of legal age, but does not know who he or she is.Systems like these have been around for quite some time, often by the very same sites that have been forced to introduce similar restrictions in other markets. Most of them will likely use Yoti, which is somewhat of a gold standard in the industry. The platform offers several methods for verifying age, such as AI-assisted selfie analysis or document uploads . Yoti stores the data of users who wish to verify themselves on a server in the UK and deletes it as soon as the process, which takes just a few moments, is complete. If the process is interrupted for any reason, the data remains on the servers for up to 24 hours.
THEORETICAL OBLIGATION AND CRITICAL ISSUES FOR NOW
aThe problem is that for now, this requirement remains, as we said at the beginning, purely theoretical : we’ve done some checking, and at least a few sites, including the three largest—PornHub, YouPorn, and Xvideos—don’t require anything different than they did yesterday—the classic self-certification in the form of an “I’m over 18” button, which anyone can click. OnlyFans, on the other hand, has already complied a few days ago .
This isn’t the only critical point raised by the measure. In recent days, Codacons (Italian consumer protection association) called the measure “a drop in the ocean” : limiting pornography to minors is “a fair measure,” Italy’s leading consumer association stated on its official blog, but it’s too easy to circumvent. For starters, this content is now also shared on social networks and messaging apps, such as Telegram, and secondly, “it applies to minors accessing these platforms from Italy, but similar blocks are not in place abroad. This means that using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) it’s possible to connect to a remote server that assigns an IP address from another country and easily circumvent the Italian block.”
Finally, it should be noted that there are well over 48 porn sites on the web, so there’s a risk that Italian users will simply move to other platforms, perhaps intrinsically more dangerous. Not to mention the fact that the sites involved in the obligation could have legal grounds to argue discrimination.
THE SITES CONCERNED
The complete list of affected sites, in alphabetical order, is as follows; as we mentioned, there are 45 sites in total. Two duplicate sites (Cam4 and Ponhdlive) and Pichaloca, which was actually a subsection of another site (Superporn), have been removed from the original list. Technically, there are still two more duplicate sites on the list (Xhamster and Xhamster Live, Xvideos and Xvideos Red).
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