France Aims to Protect Children’s Privacy
France Takes Lead to Protect Child Privacy Online with New Legislation
France made news recently when it announced that it would be passing legislation to protect the privacy of children before they became of age. In a session of the National Assembly, French lawmakers made history by being the first country to target parents’ sharing of children’s images online.
France Seeks to Promote Child Privacy Through Restrictions on Parents
France has long been a leader in children’s privacy. In the last few years, France made headlines with their efforts to curb “sharenting,” a term that refers to when parents overshare and infringe on their children’s privacy by posting their images online without permission. While children typically do not have rights to protect themselves from such sharing. And law currently focuses on the ownership of copyrights of such images as opposed to privacy interests, France’s stance is unique.
France has also addressed other aspects of children’s privacy. For example, France requires mobile devices to give parents the option to restrict access to the Internet by children. This is a significant departure from other countries, which often relies on mobile apps to restrict usage or for tablet manufacturers to limit screentime in general.
France Proposes Child Privacy Legislation Requiring Joint Responsibility from Parents
Currently, France’s proposed legislation would require joint responsibility from both parents to agree to share the child’s image. Moreover, based on the child’s age and maturity level, their input would also be required or considered. Further, if there is any dispute between the parents about the sharing of an image, the courts can step in and ban such sharing or posting if it was unauthorized by the other parent.
This becomes especially helpful and significant as the legislation noted that approximately half of the photographs circulated among sexual abusers was found to come originally from parents’ posting. It has also been noted that a large source of such sharing comes from parents posting photographs online as part of their dating profiles. This, too, supports the decision for French courts to require both parents to authorize such sharing because such posting naturally indicates a division in household.
Key Takeaways on French Legislation for Child Privacy Protections
France is poised to pass groundbreaking legislation that would impact and afford children new rights to controlling the dissemination of their photographs online. This is important because:
It demonstrates new ways privacy of children can be protected;
Sets a new standard for dissemination of photographs in regard to privacy; and
Raises important questions about how photographs among sexual abusers are culled.
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