Seanad Éireann will debate private members legislation requiring online providers of pornographic material to carry out strict age verification to ensure that U-18s can’t access their material.
Senator Rónán Mullen introduced the Protection of Children (Online Age Verification) Bill last week and the Bill will get its Second Reading during a debate this Thursday, 11th July.
The Bill is co-sponsored by fellow Independent Senators Michael McDowell, Sharon Keogan and Gerard Craughwell, and three Government Senators: Fianna Fáil’s Erin McGreehan, Diarmuid Wilson and Aidan Davitt.
The Bill establishes an obligation on internet service providers and app store services to ensure that persons under 18 shall not be able to access pornographic material online.
Website controllers and app store service providers putting up pornographic material must require users to go through an age verification process, and the Bill provides that the Minister for Media may prescribe a list or class of documents that can be acceptable for that purpose.
Senator Mullen’s Bill allows that the age verification procedure can be outsourced to ‘relevant third party’ organisations which the Minister can approve for this purpose, but makes clear that the website controller / app store service providers remain liable for any failure to apply the measure.
There will be a legal defence for providers where it can be proven that another person facilitated the circumventing of the age verification process.
The Bill also provides for the secure storage of any age verification data submitted for a period of five years. Such data may only be accessed where it is needed for legal proceedings.
“There is widespread public concern about the proliferation of pornographic material freely available on the internet, and about the damage that this can do to children and their families,” Senator Mullen said.
“Many children have unfettered access to the internet. It is long past time to make strict age verification a legal obligation on pain of criminal sanction,” he adds.
Senator Mullen noted that age verification laws had led to porn suppliers such as Pornhub to cease providing services altogether in certain US States. “Access to adult content by adults is not the focus of this Bill,” he said. “Its 100% focus is child protection. Everything must give way to that. Outside of that objective, the Bill has no other focus.”
The Senator welcomed support from three Government Senators who are co-sponsoring the Bill and is hopeful of further support at the Bill’s Second Stage reading on Thursday.
“I invite people, especially but not exclusively concerned parents, to contact the Government and other parties and ask them to support this Bill.”