A Bill which would place legal age restrictions on online pornography is “motivated by a duty of care towards children” rather than a desire to “censor or in some way restrict freedom of expression,” the Seanad has heard.
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.
Cross party support was expressed for the legislation today, with the House hearing that “we absolutely must protect our children from pornography.”
The Protection of Children (Online Age Verification) Bill 2024: Second Stage was debated at Second Stage in the Seanad on Thursday, after it was introduced last week by Senator Rónán Mullen 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.
Senator Mullen said that the legislation “essentially criminalises” the provision of pornography should the provider not have robust age verification measures in place.
“Undoubtedly it will not solve all problems,” he said. “The few will always find workarounds to seek out porn but by placing the onus on the purveyors and those providers who facilitate and profit from it, we will protect the vast majority of young people from it.
“A pub selling alcohol to those under 18 is liable to lose its licence. The publican must take adequate measures to ensure the customer is of age to consume. This simple and clear legislation seeks to penalise careless purveyors of dangerous material so it 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.”
Senator Mullen added that the law would require website controllers putting up such material to make users go through an age verification process.
“It provides for the Minister to prescribe a list or class of documents that can be acceptable for that purpose. It allows the outsourcing of age verification to relevant third parties, which the Minister can approve for that purpose,” he added.
“It makes clear that the website controller and app store providers remain liable for any failure to apply the measure and it allows a legal defence for providers where it can be proven that another person facilitated the circumventing of the age verification process. It requires secure storage of any age verification data submitted for a period of five years and ensures that such data may only be accessed where needed for legal proceedings.”
He added that the Bill does not address the issue of pornography use among those aged over 18, adding “that is a different issue that in a free society requires a different response. ”
“The Bill does not impinge on the wider use of pornography. To address that requires separate action, which should be a matter for another day,” he said.
“POTENTIAL LEGAL CONFLICTS”
Minister Catherine Martin however raised a number of legal and technical issues with the Bill, however she said she was not opposed to it.
“First, there are potential legal conflicts with the country-of-origin principle, a concept I have already mentioned. The principle is long established under European law, strongly supported by Ireland and committed to in our national digital strategy,” the Minister said.
“This Bill, however, seeks to impose obligations on online services that are established in other EU member states and therefore undermines this principle. Recent decisions by the Court of Justice of the European Union on similar issues have been in line with this principle, and the European Commission would likely strongly object to any effort to breach it.”
However, Minister Martin said she agreed that “we need to tackle the accessibility of age-inappropriate online content, in particular pornographic material, to children.”
For that reason, she said she was not opposing the Bill.
Senator Michael McDowell told Thursday’s reading that the Bill could be improved on Second, Third and Fourth Stage, and made more specific. However, he said that the principle of the Bill “seems to have universal support in the House.”
“The principle of age limits being monitored by domestic legislation in respect of other member states is already breached, if you like, in the Government’s proposed legislation in respect of the sale of tobacco products to persons under the age of 21,” Senator McDowell said.
“In that case, age verification procedures are imposed on any country within the European Union which proposes to sell tobacco products online into Ireland. In those circumstances we require that any such sale by an online process can only be done by somebody who respects and implements age verification. That would, if the tobacco Bill becomes law, be restricting the age at which cross-border tobacco sales can take place to people over the age of 21 and requires age verification to achieve that end.”
Senator McDowell raised the question of what would happen in terms of online access to non-EU sites.
“Whereas it is all very well in EU terms to say that the principle of origin applies, what about online access to non-EU sites? That is a point which strikes me. We can put all our eggs in the EU basket and require the European Commission and Coimisiún na Meán to implement EU standards as best they can. However, I wonder about access to entirely foreign and non-EU websites and sources of material. Has that been considered?”
“Given that the Government is not opposing this Bill and that it will eventually, if time permits, go to Committee Stage, such issues should be considered in that context rather than simply thrown out as seemingly insurmountable objects to dealing with the issues that I have raised.”
“I BELIEVE IN CHILDHOOD”
The Independent Senator further said that “we seem to be ambivalent on the subject of childhood in this country.” He said that young people are “subject to extraordinary pressures” at present, and that this had to be considered.
“I believe in childhood. I also believe there has to be an age of majority, that we have to be consistent in its application and that there is no need to end or dilute childhood. It is under sufficient pressure as things stand, I would argue, from pornography and social media generally. I am not talking about sexual matters only. I am talking about bullying, opinion forming, falsehood, false information, and misinformation.
“Young people are subject to extraordinary pressures in this day and age and we must, as a society, be coherent and consistent in our approach to whether people are or are not adults, and we should not begin to chip away at that principle when it suits us and invoke it, for instance, in respect of asylum seekers under the age of 18 being totally differently treated when it does not suit us.”
Fellow independent Senator Tom Clonan agreed with Senator McDowell that the legislation could be amended and refined, and that it was “a very good starting point and this is an extremely important conversation.”
“As a parent to four teenagers and young adults, I would share the concerns expressed by Senator McGreehan about consent and how access to this material can blur the boundaries and the lines of understanding around consent. That has the capacity to destroy lives. It can have life-limiting and life-altering consequences for people, so it is an extremely important conversation for us to have. I welcome the Bill and the discussion that flows from it,” he said.
The Senator also expressed concerns that children “as young as six” can access pornography, and that “any child with a phone in their hand can accidentally access” it or be exposed to it.
“However, it is not beyond our ingenuity and our collective talents to deal with this,” he said.
He added: “I echo the universal support for the spirit of the Bill and, having read the Bill, it is not motivated by a desire to censor or in some way restrict freedom of expression in any way but is motivated by a duty of care towards children.”
Fine Gael Senator Maria Byrne was supportive of the Bill, describing the legislation as “all-important.”
“The legislation highlights what is out there and the pitfalls that can be experienced by the young and the not so young,” she said.
“The Minister has gone a long way in terms of her Department and what she does. I compliment the sentiments in the Bill. The legislation has pluses and minuses.,” she said.
“There may be legal challenges or issues in the Bill, so perhaps there are some issues in the Bill that could be taken on board. I refer to that whole area around pornography and digital safety.
“I have young nephews and nieces myself. I am not saying they have been looking but there are a lot of ads on phones and whatever else that I have seen on ordinary phones. Therefore, it is important we protect people going forward.”
Fianna Fail Senator Erin McGreehan said she supported the legislation, owing to “the spirit of the Bill.”
“We absolutely must protect our children from pornography,” she said. “I am a mammy. My eldest is 11. He has a curious, beautiful mind, and I have three other boys after him. They are fantastically curious, as they should be. We want to protect that innocence, develop children’s curiosity in a safe way, teach them about life and teach them about sex and the normalities and the sacredness of what all of that brings to them in a safe and open way. Porn is not the way we do that.”
The Bill will be heard at Committee Stage this coming Monday, 15th July.