Madrid, July 1, 2024.- The Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Service, José Luis Escrivá, today presented Digital Wallet Beta, the “wallet” (digital document holder) that includes the system of verification of the age of majority in the access to contents for adults, after completing the phase of design of the tool with the publication of the technical specifications.
Escrivá explained that the provision of the technical specifications of the Digital Beta Portfolio not only closes the design phase, but will allow all operators involved in preventing minors from accessing adult content to carry out the necessary preparatory work so that their users can use this system as soon as it is available. In this regard, the minister said that the current phase of development “will last a little more than two months, so that it is available to all citizens at the end of the summer.”
The minister stressed that the implementation of the system of majority accreditation is part of the “more than necessary” great country agreement that the Government is promoting to safeguard the health, welfare and safety of children and adolescents. Already in the Draft Organic Law for the protection of minors in digital environments was included the obligation of service providers to use an age verification tool to prevent minors from accessing adult content. Regarding the non-obligated actors, Escrivá has pointed out that “it expects their maximum collaboration since it is a problem that challenges us all”.
At European level there is also a strong consensus on the need to protect minors in the digital sphere, as shown by the Leuven Declaration and the joint document entitled “Empowering citizens and businesses in the digital transformation through a streamlined and ambitious use of the EUDI Wallet”. In addition, Digital Wallet Beta is part of the eIDAS standard2, which establishes the obligation for content platforms to accept the use of European digital identity portfolios at the latest in October 2027.
Worrying data on access to inappropriate content
Escrivá pointed out that “the data we see about the access of minors to adult content and its possible consequences are the ones that have led us to develop this tool with maximum speed”. In this regard, he praised the “fantastic work” being carried out by the interministerial working group set up in March to develop the tool and that “will make available to users a solution in record time”. The chairman of the working group, Carmen Cabanillas, Director-General of Public Governance, accompanied the minister in the presentation.
The minister has highlighted some “worrying” data on access to pornography by minors, such as the fact that 7 out of 10 adolescents consume pornography on a regular basis in Spain or that the first access is between 9 and 11 years old. According to the data of the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Youth and Children, access is made mainly through the mobile phone, either by instant messaging, web pages or social networks.
“The consequences of this access to adult content are very serious and involve us all,” said Escrivá, who pointed out that the vast majority of young people between 18 and 26 years old consider that these contents are faithful to real sexuality and for many it is their only source of affective sexual information, which causes them to act by imitation and, in certain cases, by domination of men over women. “All this, according to the studies that have been analyzed in the working group, causes distortions of the perception of sexuality, emotional and sexual problems and risk of addiction,” according to the minister, who has also highlighted the 116% increase in sexual assaults carried out by minors in the last five years. “This system of verification of the age of majority that we present today is one of the most necessary and effective measures to combat this problem,” said Escrivá.
Most Age Credential
Digital Beta Wallet will be a mobile application that will securely store the majority credential issued by the Government of Spain, which will be presented to the adult content platform when the session starts. The system incorporates double authentication to prevent minors from accessing through adult devices. The application will include other functionalities from its launch and will incorporate new utilities within the framework of eIDAS 2.
In addition, a governance architecture based on trusted whitelists has been designed that allows system actors to identify themselves as such. The white list of platforms for adults managed by the Secretary of State for Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructures, the white list of verification applications managed by the Secretary of State for Digitization and Artificial Intelligence and a last of the issuers of credentials managed by the General Secretariat for Digital Administration.
The National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE), for its part, will manage, with the collaboration of other actors, a list of pages with content for adults not subject to Spanish jurisdiction with the aim that browsers can verify the age of majority before presenting their contents.