(Ottawa) The owners of online pornography site Pornhub say blocking access to Canadians is an option they are considering as they try to persuade parliamentarians to reject an approach to age verification outlined in a Senate bill.
Posted at 6:52 am.
Stephanie Taylor and Mickey Djuric The Canadian Press
“We took different options in different jurisdictions,” admitted Solomon Friedman, partner and vice president of compliance at Ethical Capital Partners, owner of Pornhub parent company Aylo. “I don’t want to speculate about (the bill) in its current form. We go to committee to make sure bad laws don't get passed. »
A House of Commons committee is expected to consider a bill from independent Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne that would require Canadians to undergo age verification to access online pornography. The bill sets out a number of concerns about minors' access to sexually explicit material, including the risk of developing an addiction to pornography and the reinforcement of harmful gender stereotypes.
It also requires companies hosting such content to ensure that young people do not have access to it, punishable by fines of between $250,000 and $500,000.
The legislation does not specify how websites must verify a user's age. However, options include implementing a digital identification system or services that can estimate a person's age based on a visual analysis of their face.
Such proposals have sparked widespread concern among privacy experts about their overall impact, whether about the risks associated with asking Canadians to share personal information with an outside provider or the use of measures such as facial recognition technology.
Other critics have warned that age verification could lead to restrictions on freedom of expression, with some companies likely preferring to block access to their websites. And others may simply find ways around the rules.
In an interview last week in Ottawa, Solomon Friedman said his company shared concerns about minors' access to Pornhub, one of the largest porn sites on the Internet. “We don’t want children on our platform. » This is not only from a moral point of view, but also from a business point of view, he says.
PHOTO JOEL SAGET, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVE
Solomon Friedman
In 2023, his company acquired ownership of Pornhub's parent company after being rocked by reports in late 2020 that the site contained countless examples of child sexual abuse material, as well as other images and videos that were uploaded without a person's consent became. These reports have led to payment companies such as Visa and Mastercard suspending their services from the site.
Pornhub has removed millions of unverified videos from its platform and implemented new security protocols.
Similar laws requiring Internet porn sites to verify a user's age have been passed in several US states, including Louisiana. After requiring the use of a government-issued ID to access Pornhub, traffic to the site plummeted.
After Utah passed a law that Friedman said did not require the use of a government ID, Pornhub completely blocked access to citizens.
Solomon Friedman argued that such laws would not have the desired effect of protecting children from sexual material, but would only push them to even darker sites on the Internet, sites that may not comply with the law.
Instead, the company says responsibility should lie with the manufacturers of the devices used to access the sites, rather than the sites themselves. “We will never take our users’ private credentials. We will always respect the law,” Mr. Friedman assured.
So far, Liberal MPs have been the only ones to vote against the bill. The New Democrats, Bloc and Conservatives voted to send the bill to committee.
New Democratic Party (NDP) House of Representatives leader Peter Julian said in a statement that the New Democrats supported the bill because of its intent to protect minors. “We look forward to considering the bill in committee, including testimony from community, health and public safety experts, to understand the full impact of the proposed bill.” »
Conservatives have regularly raised concerns about children's access to sexually explicit material while denouncing government efforts to regulate social media companies as censorship. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre's office did not respond to a request for comment before the publication deadline for this article.
Ontario MP Karen Vecchio, who sponsored the bill in the House of Representatives, told MPs in December that she agreed with individual websites not collecting personal information. However, she expressed hope that as technology advances, a solution can be found.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has long promised to enact new protections against online harms, including those that most affect children. Justice Minister Arif Virani said the next bill would focus on the safety of children while respecting freedom of expression. However, when asked directly, his political staff did not respond to whether age verification was one of the measures he was considering.
Responsibility for online harms legislation was transferred from Canadian Culture Minister Pascale St-Onge to the office of Arif Virani, whose office said in a statement that the status quo was unacceptable. “While we offer our own made-in-Canada approach to online security, we have been able to take a cue from the European Union (EU) with its Digital Services Act, the Online Safety Act of the Kingdom – United, as well as that of Australia, where 2015 an electronic security officer has been appointed,” she said in a press release. “We can all agree that what happens online doesn’t stay online, and our government is committed to making social media platforms safer for our children and all Canadians.” »
Lianna McDonald, executive director of the Canadian Center for Child Protection, said in a recent interview that she has long advocated for age verification. The Center also believes that platforms need to create websites with safeguards for children.