Spanish authorities will use digital wallets to verify a user’s age online when they try to access porn or adult sites.
This autumn, the Spanish authorities will use digital wallets to verify the age of an online user when accessing porn or adult pages.
The purse’ Beta Digital Walletpopularly known as the ‘pajaporte’, will be a mobile application that will store an “adulthood credential” issued by the Spanish Government after analyzing the user’s DNI stored in the system.
The wallet generates 30 key pairs per month that can be used only once to verify the identity of a person, according to a technical document published this week.
The system will have double authentication “to prevent minors from accessing it through adult devices”, according to the Spanish Minister of Digital Transformation and Public Function.
The Government also will identify adult content providers in “trusted white lists”, so the National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE) will help browsers identify which websites need to verify age before displaying their content.
The digital wallet will also be able to store municipal registers, University degrees and non-university students along with identity documents.
One in three young Spaniards learns about sex through porn
“The data we see about the access of minors to adult content and its possible consequences They are the ones who have led us to develop this tool as soon as possible,” José Luis Escrivá, Spain’s Minister of Digital Transformation and Public Service, said in a statement this week.
According to a report published by the Ministry of Justice in January, seven out of ten young people between 13 and 17 years old watch porn regularlyand 30% say it is their only source of sexual education.
Spanish children usually access porn for the first time between 9 and 11 years oldcontinues the newspaper, especially from the messaging applications on their phones or social networks.
What this means, according to Escrivà, is that young people consider these contents “faithful to real sexuality (…) which leads them to act by imitation”, which has caused a 116% increase in sexual assaults carried out by minors in the last five years.
The “wallet” (digital document holder) needs “a little more than two months” to be fully finished before it is made available to all citizens “at the end of summer,” Escrivá continued.
Spain works on a broader law for the protection of minors online
Spain is also working on a new bill that will force all adult service providers to use age verification.
The law on the protection of minors in digital environments “will guarantee the rights of minors in the digital sphere,” focusing on privacy, the protection of personal data and “access to age-appropriate content,” according to a government statement on the legislation.
If approved, public authorities will also carry out awareness campaigns about the rights and risks of minors on the internet. The Government will offer special attention to children “with pathologies associated with the inappropriate use of devices,” the statement continues.
The law defines as crime the creation and dissemination of ‘deepfake’ pornographic images or audio generated by artificial intelligence (AI).
The Government plans to send the bill to the Spanish Parliament in the autumn for approval.
EU e-wallets will go live in 2027
This measure by Spain is part of a greater effort by the European Union to adopt digital wallets for 80% of citizens by 2030. The Spanish wallet conforms to the same regulations as the European models.
The future European Union Digital Identity (EUDI) will act like a physical wallet, but online. Documents will be stored securely and accessible anywhere in the EU.
ADVERTISINGThe European Digital Identity Regulation (eIDAS 2) rules, updated in May, govern who should adopt the virtual wallet, with the ultimate goal of its acceptance in 2027. according to the company Spanish software company Veridas.
