PARIS — Following France’s adoption of a controversial mandatory age verification (AV) system for adult websites, popular French content providers Jacquie & Michel Group have continued developing My18Pass, an OpenID-based solution to comply with the new requirements.
My18Pass allows viewers to associate their date of birth with a user account, and sites using the solution can then verify the user’s age.
The company, which had initially announced the system back in November 2020, hopes to expand in the coming months by striking deals with other adult companies to share My18Pass with them and possibly monetize it.
When a user visits a site using My18Pass, according to a company rep, the following process is implemented:
The site makes a request to My18Pass, via the user’s browser, to find out whether this user is known to My18Pass. If the user is known, the information relating to his or her over-18 ages is returned by My18Pass and the site can therefore display its uncensored version. If the user is not known to My18Pass, the site warns the user [they are] viewing a censored version and that to view the site in its uncensored version, he or she must validate their age on My18Pass.
In this second case, when the user visits My18Pass, they are invited to enter his or her date of birth and email address. To continue the process, they must then validate the email address, then register a password which will allow them to authenticate themselves on My18Pass later. The last step is the validation of the date of birth entered. Two solutions are offered: validation by bank card or verification by an identity document.
Validation by bank is a request for authorization of a payment of €0 to the bank issuing the card.
A Two-Stage Identity and AV System
The verification of an identity document, according to the company, is constructed in two stages: “the presentation of an identity document in front of the webcam, then a selfie,” with human verification of the selfie.
My18Pass notes that neither the credit card imprint, nor the identity documents, nor the selfie are kept on record beyond the approval process.
At the end of this process, the user is redirected to the site, who can then repeat the first step in order to ask My18Pass if the user is of legal age.
My18Pass cites as advantages of their system the following:
- the user only needs to validate their age once, and the information can then be used by all the sites using My18Pass in a transparent way for the user
- the anonymity of the user is preserved since My18Pass only communicates the over-18 status of the user
- My18Pass does not keep any trace of the sites which request the age verification
“All data is destroyed, regardless of the process, credit card or ID,” the rep stressed. “My18Pass does not store or keep anything, apart from information relating to the AV.”
According to the Jacquie & Michel Group CTO, their company is “fortunate to have a very strong brand that has gained the public’s confidence for 20 years. Currently — and we did not expect it — users would rather scan their identity card than take a free imprint of their bank card.”
“If France — and then Europe — really succeeds in imposing the drastic verification of the majority of a visitor, the whole adult economy will be upset,” said the company rep. “We have a hard time seeing how free sites are not going to unravel. A tool like My18Pass to access free content may become more widespread in the years to come and strong brands will succeed in maintaining a solid base on their free content otherwise, the business model will revert to that of a paid model with more polished content.”
As to the enforceability of France’s controversial AV law, the Jacquie et Michel rep said that, “it’s still something very difficult to apply. It is a very large-scale job and it won’t happen in a few months.”
For more information, visit Jacquie & Michel Group online and on Twitter.