Since Wednesday, October 4, MPs are debating one of the most important pieces of digital legislation of Emmanuel Macron's second term on the floor of the Assemblée Nationale, following the senators' unanimous vote on July 5. The bill to "secure and regulate digital space" ("sécuriser et réguler l’espace numérique", SREN), championed by Junior Digital Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, is a patchwork of measures ranging from fighting online harassment to controlling access to pornographic sites, and even to combating phishing.

Article 6 of the bill details what has been presented as an "anti-scam filter", designed to combat online crimes, mainly phishing. This concerns sites "manifestly designed" to carry out specific offenses: identity theft, illegal data collection, bank fraud and even hacking into a computer system. When such a site is discovered by the authorities, they can contact its publisher and ask them to put a stop to the offenses detected, and at the same time alert browser developers (Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, etc.), who must display a warning message to visitors.

If it is impossible to identify and contact the publisher, the authorities can directly request that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Domain Name System (DNS, which route online traffic) providers block the offending domain name without delay. The idea of imposing such a restriction on browser developers, against which the Mozilla Foundation (which distributes Firefox software) had been particularly vocal, was finally abandoned. The main Web browsers already include tools to identify certain fraudulent sites and alert users who visit them.

One of the main points of contention in the text is Article 1, which requires that the French Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority (ARCOM) publish a technical reference guide specifying the steps to be taken to implement an age verification tool on pornographic sites. A law passed in July 2020, which requires publishers of such sites to set up verification tools and decrees that a mere self-declaration is insufficient, already gave the ARCOM the possibility of establishing such a reference guide. But the authority never did so, and the leaders of the pornographic industry have used this in the courts, arguing that there is no reliable method that respects user privacy.

The SREN bill stipulates that the ARCOM must publish this reference guide within six months after the law passes. However, some child protection associations as well as a number of MPs are opposed to this stipulation, believing that it provides pornographic sites with new ammunition with which to defend themselves. In their view, it is up to the platforms to find and implement technical solutions to prevent minors from accessing their content.

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