Walter Finch
THE Spanish government is seeking to introduce a ‘digital card’ that will limit the number of times someone can access porn websites each month.
The online card will require users to identify themselves each time they visit a porn website, and limit their use to 30 times within a period of 30 days.
On top of that, they will only be able to access the same website three times within the period.
The stated purpose of the new ‘digital card’ is to stop children under 18 from being exposed to pornography.
The government is in talks with internet providers in Spain such as Movistar and Vodafone to block porn websites that refuse to sign up with the measures.
Previously, age verification on such platforms was minimal, simply asking users to click on a button to ‘prove’ they were over 18.
The newly implemented system aims to significantly beef up these checks, ensuring that only eligible adults can view the content.
The new proposals are part of a new government strategy for protecting children in the online realm.
Other measures will require that all electronics manufacturers build in parental controls to tablets and smartphones.
Minister for Digital Transformation Jose Luis Escriva outlined the plans during a presentation in Madrid on Monday.
The new porn restrictions, only for residents in Spain, will be housed within a ‘Spanish digital wallet’ app, which also stores other personal documents like residency certificates and university degrees.
There is also a desire to oblige web browsers and social media networks – mostly located in Ireland – to also sign up to the verification measures if they are hosting adult content.
The age verification feature within the app will use facial recognition, patterns, or codes to unlock, ensuring minimal personal data is exchanged to maintain privacy.
The Spanish government plans to roll out the app by late summer, starting with a beta version, as part of its policy on digital safety and child protection in the digital era.
The proposals have already prompted a flood of humorous memes on social media, with images of a passport named pajaporte (‘wank-port’) doing the rounds.
This must be one of the most ridiculous and anti libertarian measures to be recently proposed by any democratic country . It is typical of a left wing government which adopts the worst sort of Woke social mores . The only strange thing is that it comes from a Spanish source , albeit one which has adopted most of the other badges of the international Woke club such as , the recent obsessive and one sided support for the Palestinians [ the conflict is far more nuanced ] or demonization of the so called far Right most recently in France [ but can at least 34% of all those entitled to vote be crypto fascists ? Surely not ] .
The idea that you are going to have to submit to porn rationing smacks so much of the ” nanny state ” that the Sapo is left wondering who has proposed such a step to this Socialist government . There must be some malign Anglo Saxon influence here . Puritanical pedlars of prohibitions are rarely Latins. There might be some justification for trying to enforce the ban on the under 16 s from looking at pornography by mandating age verification although , I rather doubt that anything is going to thwart the appetite or ingenuity of the curious teenage boy . However, what is the possible justification in imposing this rationing on adults . And why is there a limit of once a day or even more inexplicably on repeated visits to the same site . As an adult you can drink or smoke yourself to death with little impediment . Did anyone die of an excess of onanism or of doing so more than three times a month in front of the same piece of visual stimulation ? Really , what a ludicrous proposal . This is all for any adult in a free society to decide on. The Sapo says hands off those who would rather have at least one hand on .