France may take additional steps to prevent minors from accessing social media platforms. As its government pushes ahead with a proposed ban on social media use for anyone under 15, some leaders are already considering adding further restrictions. During an appearance on the public broadcasting service FranceInfo, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Affairs Anne Le Henneuf said VPNs could be the next target.
“If [this legislation] This allows us to protect a very large portion of children, we will continue to do so. And VPN is the next topic on my list,” he said.
A virtual private network would potentially allow French citizens under the age of 15 to avoid social media restrictions. We’ve seen a surge in the popularity of VPNs after similar laws on age-gating content were passed in the UK last year. However, a VPN also offers benefits for online privacy, and introducing age verification requirements where your personal data must be submitted negates a large part of the appeal of these services.
The French social media ban is still a work in progress. France’s National Assembly voted in favor of the sanctions last week with a result of 116-23, putting it forward for discussion in the country’s Senate. While neither comment means France will actually ban VPNs for any demographic, it points toward the direction some of the country’s leaders want to take. Critics reacted to Le Hanneuf’s statements with concern that these efforts at protective measures were moving in an authoritarian direction.
The actions taken in France echo several other legislative efforts around the world aimed at reducing children and teens’ access to social media and other potentially sensitive online content. The US has introduced 25 state-level laws for age verification over the past two years, which has raised a new set of concerns about users’ privacy and personal data, especially when there has been no effort to standardize how that information will be collected or protected. When data breaches are already so common in large corporations, it’s hard to trust that individual sites and services that suddenly need to create an age verification process won’t be easy targets for hacks.
<a href