25-04-2025
Age verification measures to ensure online safety to start in July
Age verification measures to watch pornography or extremely violent content on platforms in this jurisdiction will come into effect in July, despite the regulator receiving 'pushback' from some big tech firms, it has said.
Coimisiun Na Meán said that measures included in the Online Safety Code which take effect this summer also include restrictions on harmful content such as cyber bullying, the promotion of eating disorders and promotion of self-harm and suicide.
Online Safety Commissioner Niamh Hodnett said: 'Through all of these actions, we want to ensure that children and young people can enjoy the benefits that media brings to them, and that regulated entities take proportionate steps to protect them from being harmed.'
In terms of age assurance, the regulator has previously said that simply ticking a box to say you're over the age of 18 will be insufficient under the code.
Platforms to which the Online Safety Code applies include YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, Reddit, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Udemy, LinkedIn, and X (formerly Twitter). Sanctions for breaches of the code can run into the tens or hundreds of millions of euro.
X, Reddit and Tumblr have taken judicial reviews against the code, with the latter two failing in their High Court bids. In the case of X, it accused Coimisiún na Meán of 'regulatory overreach' in its approach. That judicial review is set for hearing in June.
Digital Services Commissioner John Evans said that, based on discussions with these platforms, they already have a 'sense of what direction different players are going and what our approach might be'.
He also said that 'different platforms have different attitudes' to the code, and that the regulator has been subject to 'pushback' from some platforms regarding the obligations being put upon them.
Ms Hodnett added that some had come to them 'voluntarily' to ask for guidance on how to ensure age assurance in a 'privacy compliant way'.
'That hard supervision will start in July in this regard,' she said, adding that the regulator also has concerns around AI-generated child abuse imagery being shared online.
