Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will begin by supporting the spirit of the Bill. It has a laudable objective, that we could arrive at a position where we could prohibit anyone under the age of 18 from accessing pornography. However, I do not think the Bill is the answer. Although I note the Minister is not opposing the Bill I would understand if she was.

There is no question that when it comes to pornography, full stop, we need a greater education and I see that increasing. In the education provided in schools we need very clear instruction to discern between the reality and beauty of human intimate relationships versus what is seen in pornography. We see Generation X breaking down intimacy from sexual relations and not seeing a concurrence between that. There was a report this week on that issue. The idea that we need to tackle pornography and its impact on our society is laudable and I agree 100% and support that.

However, the Bill is problematic for all the reasons the Minister outlined. There is adequate regulation and oversight. We need it to be cross-border. Ireland on its own cannot tackle the damage done by pornography and by everything else that comes at children and adults online. Coimisiún na Meán is still in its embryonic stage and is already doing a great job. I have great hopes for what it will do in the future. I thank Cece Walson who is in the Gallery. She is interning with me at the moment. She and I went through the Bill and discussed and debated all of the points.

First, there is a problem with the definition of "pornographic material". Defining it as " any image or sound that depicts or purports to depict sexual activity or sexual exploitation” would be problematic for any streaming service that has a film rated 18-plus. Any film that has sexual content would depict or purport to depict. It would put films that are in the 18-plus into the category of pornographic material and thereby requiring age verification for people to go on Netflix. There are unintended consequences of this Bill that are not suitable. With the "purported to depict" definition we could have a situation of, when Meg Ryan depicts or fakes an orgasm or does the gestures in a restaurant in the movie" When Harry Met Sally", that would be purporting to depict sexual activity. Things like that would be under the definition of "pornographic material". The Bill would have benefited from looking at a situation where the definitions within child grooming related to for the purposes of sexual gratification, rather than just merely watching the movie. The definition could do with being very severely refined and dealt with.

The other piece of this is the data collection mechanism and the idea there have to be documents produced. What are people going to do? Anyone who wants to access an online site would have to produce or submit a copy of their passport, which would be held for up to five years. That in itself is highly problematic. For a start, who wants to hand over documentation that could lead to his or her identity being given to anonymous entities abroad? That is not okay. What will happen with age verification in time will be that artificial intelligence, AI, will overcome age verification online and for anything that is accesses through a mobile phone. In time, AI will have a solution that will protect the privacy of the individual but be able to assess the age of the people who are accessing the content. There is a real problem with the data collection; the data controller and the fact that it permits third-party processors in an era of cybersecurity risks. The idea of the mass holding of identity information for age verification purposes is highly problematic so that is not the solution either.

We do need to move to a place where there are solutions on this and that comes back to the regulation we have in place, believing in the regulation and supporting it and looking at that cross-border element. Even the definitions of the offence are also problematic. It is a person and given the size of these companies a fine of €500,000 is a drop in the ocean for them. Who will be called in and be imprisoned? We have problems with the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 where there are accidents at work as to who actually would be imprisoned and it actually comes down to fines. These sorts of companies can soak up a fine of €500,000 just like that. The solutions in the likes of the Digital Services Act of doing a percentage of turnover and in the general data protection regulation, GDPR, of a percentage of global turnover is the greatest deterrent and has the greatest implication on forcing compliance with those sorts of things.

While I very much support the spirit of the Bill, it is not practical and it needs huge changes. I believe we already have the regulations in place that we just have to believe in, support and allow to grow and manifest and actually work. They will in time.