PARIS—The high administrative court of France ruled in favor of the government Tuesday in a legal dispute over whether adult entertainment platforms have to verify the ages of users originating from IP addresses in the country's digital space. Platforms are now required to verify users' ages per the controversial SREN age verification law.
The Conseil d'État (Council of State), a legal advisory body to the executive branch of the French government and the supreme court in administrative justice matters, chose to rule against the parent company of xHamster.com, Hammy Media, after an interim relief judge at the Paris Administrative Court blocked enforcement of the SREN law.
“The company requesting the suspension does not demonstrate that this measure will have a serious and immediate impact on its economic situation,” explained the court.
Despite this immediate high court ruling, xHamster and the Aylo-owned Pornhub.com maintain that France forcing SREN law enforcement via the country's digital regulator Arcom directly contradicts transnational online safety laws adopted by the European Union via the Digital Services Act.
The Paris Administrative Court saw this contradiction and held the government order to verify ages until a pan-European court ruled on the matter. Decreed by the French Digital Affairs Ministry, the order was framed by xHamster, which is based in Limassol, Cyprus, as an overstep. F
ollowing the Paris Administrative Court's suspension of the decree, the French government appealed to the Conseil d'État. The council decided that enforcement of age verification is justified and annulled the suspension of the law, allowing enforcement to proceed, per the English edition of Le Monde.
"YouPorn and Pornhub hit a wall," said Clara Chappaz, French digital affairs minister and outspoken anti-pornography critic, via the social media network X. "Judicial manoeuvrings in order to not protect children don't work."
This court decision comes shortly after the European Union announced that the French government will join a pilot program to deploy a white-label age verification app that is used to verify ages. According to the European Commission, the white-label blueprint will be adopted by Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, and Spain.
"Market players can also take up the software solution and further develop it," says the commission, referring to private companies operating in the EU's digital space.
"The EU age verification solution sets a new benchmark for privacy protection in age verification methods," explains the same press statement. "When users will activate the app, once it becomes available at the national level, their age will be verified by the issuer using detailed personal data, like the date of birth."
AVN reported last month on the white-label age verification application and technical infrastructure. Finland-based technology news outlet AfterDawn.com reported that the company developing the age verification app on behalf of the EU is called T-Scy, which won a commission tender for the project.
French President Emmanuel Macron praised the involvement of France in the bloc-wide age verification pilot program.
"We’ve made the difficult decision to suspend access to our sites (user-uploaded content platforms, including Pornhub, YouPorn, Redtube) in France and instead use our platforms to speak directly to the French people," said Alex Kekesi, vice president of brand and community for Aylo. "French citizens deserve a government and a regulator who are serious about preventing children from accessing adult content. They also deserve laws which protect their privacy and safeguard their sensitive data."
