Poland

Poland is making progress towards age verification for pornography.

In December 2019, the Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced that the government intended to propose new age verification legislation. The Prime Minister signalled that the government will intervene to make sure that adult content reaches adults only. He stated, “Just as we protect children and young people from alcohol, as we protect them from drugs, so should we also verify access to content, to pornographic material, with all strictness”.

The Family Council consists of 14 members of parliament, family policy experts and representatives of NGOs. The mission of family council is to support, initiate and promote actions that will benefit traditional families.

As a starting point, Poland took over proposals prepared by a non-governmental organisation called ‘Your Cause Association’. The Association’s proposal was to impose an obligation on distributors of pornography to implement age verification tools. In general, the proposed legislation was based on the assumptions similar to the ones previously passed by the UK Parliament, with certain modifications.

The Prime Minister appointed the Minister of Family and Social Affairs to lead on the legislation. The Minister of Family and Social Affairs appointed a group of specialists whose aim was to work on various models of age verification which would ensure the maximum level of privacy protection.

The group finished their work in September 2020. Within the government of Poland, the work is still in progress. The date when the proposed legislation would be passed to the Parliament is unknown at this stage. The delay is very much related to managing the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been the priority for the government.