Porn sites Pornhub, XVideos, and Stripchat face stricter requirements to verify the ages of their users after being officially designated as “Very Large Online Platforms” (VLOPs) under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA).
I personally have mixed feelings, as the information collection could be used to link individuals and profile them. Possibly leading to discrimination if abused.
But I also feel that any random kid shouldn’t be able to just go to these sites and see porn freely.
Ofc, there’s always going to be those who mange to circumvent any protection put in place but it’d be much harder then just clicking a link or typing in the address.
I also feel that parents should actively monitor their kids online activities and step up a Blocklist to pro-actively prevent kids from reaching these sites to begin with.
What are your thoughts on this?
That’s still worrying: wouldn’t some central authority know that “site X requested age verification for this person”?
No. There is no 3rd party service needed. It all can happen only between the service asking and the id (smart card).
… and that’s different from the service having a record of your photo ID?
The service gets no other information other then “Is the holder of the id older then 18” => “Yes”
There is no personal data exchange.