Also available in: Deutsch (German)

On 20 December 2023, the EU Commission published a decision that imposes a whole range of obligations on platforms with more than 45 million monthly users in the EU. Among other things, age verification systems will be mandatory for adult entertainment sites.

Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideos must therefore install Age Verification

These three platforms must comply with the regulations, with a deadline of 17 February 2024. Due to their high access figures, they are considered “VLOPs”, i.e. “very large online platforms”. In addition to the protection of minors, the EU Commission explicitly lists, among other things, non-consensual publications and deepfakes, the dissemination of which must be prevented. The basis for this is the DSA, the EU digital law. The wording of the decision leaves room for interpretation: “Today’s designations follow a first set of designation decisions for 19 very large online platforms and search engines on 25 April 2023”. This means that a further 16 platforms could soon be affected, although these are unlikely to be adult platforms. And further: “With the exception of small and micro-enterprises, all online platforms and search engines must comply with the general DSA obligations by 17 February 2024.” However, there is still a long way to go between “small businesses” and 45 million monthly hits. What’s more, the obligations go far beyond the installation of an effective AVS. “VLOPs must fulfil additional transparency requirements, including the publication of transparency reports on content moderation and risk management decisions every six months, plus annual reports on their systemic risks and audit findings; VLOPs must appoint a compliance function and undergo an annual external independent audit,” says the EU Commission. There will therefore be an enormous amount of bureaucracy for operators to deal with. There will also be no shortage of jobs for auditors and bureaucrats.

Of course, the EU Commissioners always prioritise the best interests of the child, which, according to their logic, is apparently not affected by pornographic sites with 44 million monthly hits without age verification. At the same time, the EU Commission has announced strict monitoring of compliance with the new regulations. A deadline of the end of August 2024 has been set for reporting; small and micro enterprises are also exempt from this.

Fines of up to 6% of the respective global annual income are envisaged for violations.

In principle, legal action against decisions by EU commissions is difficult, but in principle quite possible. So it will be interesting to see…

Important: This decision has nothing to do with Germany’s special approach to the protection of minors, which we have reported on here.

The text of the EU Commission’s decision is available here.

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