France’s Constitutional Court has killed the country’s forthcoming social media ban for under-15s over concerns it could disproportionately harm the free speech of both minors and adults.
In a ruling on August 14, the Paris court noted that the French government had failed to show that a complete ban on children accessing certain websites was proportionate considering the potential harms to their speech rights.
“[The ban’] could apply to online communication services for which the risks to the health and safety of minors… have not been established,” the ruling said.
It added that the proposed ban also necessitates the implementation of mandatory age checks for all French citizens using the net without, it said, implementing measures aimed at preventing overreach.
This, the court ruled, represented an unacceptable infringement on the privacy rights of adults.
“[B]y failing to specify the conditions and limits under which such proof must be provided, the legislature has not established the legal safeguards necessary to ensure compliance with these [privacy] requirements,” it said.
The ruling is a substantial setback for both President Emmanuel Macron, as well as the European Union, both of which have made a child social media ban a policy cornorstone.
Macron insists his government will now adjust the ban to get around the ruling, tasking the country’s prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, with conjuring a “legally robust draft… as quickly as possible”.
The decision will also likely cause issues for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who has been working with the Irish government to push through an EU-wide ban on minors accessing social media.
“This is not about whether children can access social media. It is about whether and when social media can access our children,” she claimed last month.
Privacy campaigners have meanwhile expressed concerns that any such ban will necessitate the widespread monitoring of adult internet use, as well as the introduction of a system of digital ID across Europe.
While Brussels has insisted it is able to implement mandatory online age checks without compromising user data, independent examinations of prototype European software for such purposes have found widespread and endemic security and functionality flaws.
Brussels has downplayed such issues, insisting it will continue with its plans to roll out the software across the bloc.