🇪🇺 European Parliament Committee Adopts ECLJ-Backed Measure to Enforce Age Checks on Explicit Websites

In a major step toward strengthening online child protection, a committee of the European Parliament has adopted an amendment requiring pornographic websites to implement mandatory age verification systems for users.

This legislative advancement follows sustained efforts by the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), which has supported the initiative through comprehensive research, policy papers, and active participation in conferences hosted at the European Parliament. The organization has also published public commentaries advocating for tighter online safeguards to prevent minors from accessing explicit content.

The amendment seeks to impose legal obligations on adult content platforms to verify users’ ages, addressing growing concerns over children’s exposure to obscene material online.

While the amendment must still pass a vote in plenary to become binding, its approval at the committee stage marks significant momentum in the legislative process.

It is clear that while Children deserve freedom, they also need protection from content that could undermine or corrupt that freedom and this legislation will form part of that protection.

The ECLJ emphasized that protecting minors from harmful online content is not about restricting freedom, but about ensuring that the digital space upholds basic standards of safety and dignity for all, especially children.