What the new digital law will change for people in France

A new digital law has been voted through the French parliament, with 36 articles on everything from financial scams, adult content, online harassment, and data protection.

What is the new digital law?

The law is called the loi [visant à] sécuriser et réguler l’espace numérique (SREN), which translates as the ‘law [aiming to] secure and regulate the digital space’.

It was voted through by the Assemblée nationale yesterday evening (Tuesday, October 17), by 360 in favour and 77 against.

The government received support from Les Républicains (centre-left) and the Parti socialiste (centre-left). The La France Insoumise (left) party voted against, denouncing the law as a “mess”.

The Parti Communiste (left) and the Green (EELV, left-centre) party abstained, as did the Rassemblement National (far-right), after calling it a “shameful text”.

The bill has been subject to significant debate, with a record 953 amendments in the final text.

What does it cover?

Access changes for adult content

The first ‘chapter’ of the law refers to access to adult content, including pornography.

It will aim to:

• Strengthening of the powers of telecoms watchdog Arcom to block adult sites to minors

• Protect minors online by requiring mandatory tools for added age verification

Added protection against disinformation, deep fakes, scams, and online harassment

The second section aims to protect the wider public in the digital space.

It includes measures designed to:

• Protect against foreign propaganda, disinformation and interference

• Criminalise deep fakes (the use of AI to put a face on someone else’s body, to make it look like they are doing or saying things which they have not) published without consent

• Make ‘online contempt’ an offence

• Roll out a national consumer 'anti-scam' filter to prevent online scams and fraudulent activity such as phishing (a type of scam where attackers deceive people into revealing sensitive data or installing malware)

• Create legal punishments for online bullying and trolls on social media

• Introduce fines for people who commit ‘sexist and sexual outrage’ online

The Assemblée has already agreed that everyone should have access to a ‘digital identity’ by 2027, but it stopped short of requiring users to have such an ID to open online accounts, for example for social media.

Improved data protection

The third chapter is set to improve commercial practices and data sharing laws, to better protect people’s personal data.

It will aim to:

• Introduce better control of commercial practices in the cloud, including more competition for businesses and IT service companies

• Better regulate the sharing of data between services

• Require stronger protection of strategic and sensitive data

The law will also:

• Centralise data to be transmitted to local councils, when it comes to information such as the rental of furnished tourist accommodation, or the checking of personal data by the justice system

• Introduce extra regulation for monetisable digital games (jeux à objet numérique monétisable, JONUM), and strengthen the lines between online gambling and online pay-to-play games

• Provide more regulation on online gambling games and online casinos

The law also covers measures on the freedom of expression, anonymity, data storage, fair digital use, and data storage.

What happens next?

The law will now be submitted to a joint committee of the two Houses (the Senate and the Assemblée), although the date for this committee meeting has not yet been revealed.

The bill has already been adopted by the Senate on July 7, and judged as fair and “balanced” by the Minister Delegate for Digital Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot.

Mr Barrot said that the SREN project would draw “red lines” to help the “protection of citizens, children, and businesses”.

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