In 2004 the French government legally obliged ISPs to provide their customers with filtering software (1). The law has since been reinforced by an agreement between the authorities and the ISPs. On 16 November 2005 the AFA (Association of Internet service providers) represented the latter in,a commitment to the Minister of Family Affairs to supply their subscribers with free-of-charge parental control software before the end of the first quarter 2006. This initiative was the first of its kind world-wide.

The aim of the government is to make available to French internet users a minimum number of tools to ensure the online protection of minors. To follow up the action, the Ministry of Family Affairs set up a committee comprising both private and public stakeholders as well as associations for the protection of minors.

Minimal technical quality standards are in place (white lists for children and black lists for adolescents) and the parental control software is tested under the supervision of the Delegation on Internet Usages (DUI) and the Interdepartmental Delegation on Family Matters (DIF).

At present, all ISPs operating in France (Alice, AOL, Club Internet, wanadoo/orange, Numéricable, Nine Cegetel, Noos, MSN, UPC) offer their subscribers free parental control software.

The software is understandably of diverse quality, as underlined by the most recent tests conducted in February 2007. It is nevertheless noteworthy that the evaluation procedures in place (2) ensure complete transparency so that parents can choose the best online protection services for their children. .

Flor Naudin, French awareness node 

1. Article 6 paragraph I – 1 of the law n° 2004-575 relating to trust in the digital economy: "Persons whose activity consists in providing public access to online communication services must inform their subscribers of the existence of technical means to limit access to certain services or must select and provide their subscribers with at least one of these means"

2. Comparative test on parental control software of ISPs available at:
http://www.e-enfance.org/cote_parents/soft/test/