Spain introduces app to restrict access to online porn
Designed to protect minors, the app will also limit adults in Spain to 30 porn ‘sessions’ per month
The Spanish government has dreamed up plenty of divisive policies over the years but this latest move has taken social media by storm, generating hilarious memes but also slightly more disturbing ‘Big Brother is watching us’ vibes as well. The plan is to roll-out an app that will first verify the age of internet users before allocating them a certain number of ‘sessions’ per month that they can use to access online pornography sites.
It’s called the ‘Digital Beta Wallet’ and is tipped to come into force sometime after the summer, presumably in September. The ‘anti-porn’ app, as many have taken to calling it already, can be installed on any device and will require age verification before the person can access websites of an adult nature.
Its primary objective is to protect children and teens from stumbling upon mature content, but it will also limit the amount of porn adults are allowed to watch. Essentially, the app will grant users 30 ‘sessions’ per month. For now, this digital certificate will only be mandatory for Spanish porn websites, but it won’t block any foreign ones.
Once the plan was announced, the jokes followed rapidly, with hundreds of social media users posting altered photos of passports that have been renamed ‘pajaporte’ – paja is a word used for masturbation in Spain, while porte is the second half of the Spanish word for passport, so you get the gist.
However, there are some real concerns about data protection and privacy, despite government assurances that the system will be 100% secure and foolproof.
But every morning we wake up to news that some bank or official institution has been hacked and user information has been compromised, and given the sensitive nature of the details stored on the ‘Digital Beta Wallet’, the concerns seem justified.
Clearly though, something needs to be done, as the data show that children in Spain generally get their first glimpse of porn between the ages of 9 and 11, and that 70% of adolescents view adult material on a regular basis.
While the UK, France and several other countries are currently developing technology to combat the problem, Spain is the first in Europe to launch this kind of control app.
Image: Unsplash/X
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