Canadian Senator Trying to Invade Privacy with Porn Bill
Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne is trying to force porn sites to force users to verify their age and potentially their identity.
A new bill introduced by Independent Sen. Julie Miville-Dechêne is intended to make it harder for Canadians to access porn.
According to The Canadian Press, the federal government is in the process of voting on legislation that would require users to verify their age before gaining access to porn sites.
Via CBC News:
“A House of Commons committee is set to study legislation proposed by Independent Sen. Julie Miville-Dechêne that would require Canadians to verify their age to access porn online.”
The report also says the bill is meant to prevent underage kids from accessing porn sites, which can cause addictions.
“The bill outlines a range of concerns about minors having access to sexually explicit material, including the potential to develop a pornography addiction and the reinforcement of harmful gender stereotypes.”
However, critics fear the bill will do more harm than good.
They believe the bill will invade Canadians’ privacy as well as lead to harsher dangers such as kids and adults finding go-arounds to evade the verification.
This can lead to them accessing and using darker sites that could contain child porn, revenge porn, and/or computer viruses.
I agree with the critics, despite my belief that there should be an un-invasive age verification (such as having the user put in an actual birth date instead of just clicking “Yes” or “No” on the “Are you over 18?” pop-up prompt).
I believe kids shouldn’t use porn. There are too many potential negative effects that have recently been unraveled (here, here and here).
But I also believe that the government has no right to force us to put a face behind our sexual kinks. I don’t want the government knowing what my search and watch history on PornHub is and I think the majority of Canadians don’t either.
So instead of trying to pass this Orwellian policy to snuff minors’ access to porn, I think the government should put their time and money into figuring out ways to educate kids on porn’s potential harms as education -I believe anyway- is the best form of prevention.
Thus far, the Conservatives, Bloc Québécois and NDP all voted in favour of the legislation. The majority of Liberals voted against it.
