The Polish Parliament on March 6 Will Decide Whether to Protect Children from Online Pornography

Ordo Iuris

The Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament, will decide on March 6 whether to proceed with a citizens’ bill on protecting minors from pornography on the Internet or reject it, leaving the problem unresolved. Poles should now put pressure on MPs from all parties, as protecting children from such content should be a unifying issue. The citizens’ initiative committee received information about the date of the first reading on Monday morning. The Ordo Iuris Institute has also prepared an appeal to MPs, urging them to proceed quickly and pass the bill. Additionally, it will encourage citizens to contact MPs in the days leading up to the vote.

How to Protect Children from Pornography?

The citizens’ bill aims to introduce effective age verification mechanisms for users of pornographic websites, ensuring such content is inaccessible to children. Similar measures are being introduced this year in the UK, France, and Italy and are already in force in an increasing number of U.S. states. The bill would require website owners to implement these mechanisms or face sanctions, including the potential blocking of their sites by Polish Internet providers. The Polish Authority for Electronic Communications (UKE) will assess the effectiveness of the verification system. Platforms failing to implement appropriate solutions will be added to a central registry, leading to their websites being blocked by Polish Internet providers and cut off from payment services in Poland. Consequently, Polish-issued bank cards will no longer be usable for payments on these sites.

The decision to place a website on the central registry can be appealed before Polish administrative courts, but it will take immediate effect, ensuring swift action. This measure is intended to incentivize platform owners to verify users’ ages before granting access to pornographic content.

Similar solutions have been implemented worldwide over the past two to three years. They are already operational in more than a dozen U.S. states and are expected to take effect this year in the UK, France, Italy, and Australia. The Canadian parliament is also currently considering such regulations. Thanks to new technologies, it is now possible to verify a user’s age while preserving their privacy. Until now, enforcing long-standing laws prohibiting the distribution of pornography to minors in the digital space was challenging, rendering such laws ineffective—including in Poland.

Citizens' Movement in Response to Political Inaction

For some reason, Poland’s ruling class has so far shown little interest in solving this problem, regardless of the political parties in power. Promises, when made, remained unfulfilled. In response, the Ordo Iuris Institute and the Center for Life and Family launched a citizens’ initiative last year. This movement has gained support from various organizations, including the Coalition for Life and Family, All-Polish Youth, the Mom and Dad Foundation, the March for Independence Association, the Little Feet Foundation, the Foundation for Health Education and Psychotherapy, the Father Piotr Skarga Association, the Polish Women's Confederation, the Knights of John Paul II, and Catholic Action.

Right-wing politicians from Confederation and Law and Justice, including Krzysztof Bosak, Marlena Maląg, Piotr Uściński, Bartłomiej Wróblewski, Barbara Socha, and Maria Kurowska, have also backed the initiative. Journalists, columnists, TV presenters, and public figures, such as Jan Pospieszalski, Rafał Ziemkiewicz, Tomasz Rowiński, Zuzanna Dąbrowska-Pieczyńska, Anna Popek, and Rafał Patyra, along with actress Patrycja Hurlak, have spoken in favor of it. Additionally, some members of The Left, Poland 2050, and the agrarian party PSL have privately expressed appreciation or even support for the initiative. Deputy Minister of Digitization Michał Gramatyka also responded positively to the news that the citizens’ bill was being submitted to the Sejm.

To submit a citizens’ bill in Poland, at least 100,000 handwritten signatures must be collected within three months of the initiative’s registration by the Speaker of the Sejm. On December 20, representatives of the citizens' initiative committee submitted over 200,000 signatures, symbolically wrapped as gifts—signifying that blocking access to online pornography is the best present adult citizens can give to Poland’s children and youth.

“We are giving 212,000 gifts to Polish children and young people this Christmas, and these gifts are signatures for the bill on protecting children from access to pornography. This is a watershed moment. This initiative is capable of uniting hundreds of thousands of Poles,” said at the time Marcin Perlowski, Director of the Center for Life and Family and main representative of the citizens’ bill initiative “Stop the Pornography Drug.”

The campaign name reflects the view that pornography is the real drug of the 21st century. The average age at which Polish children first encounter pornographic content is now under 11—just the fifth grade of elementary school—and that is only an average. One in four teenagers reports watching pornographic videos or images daily, according to a 2022 report by the Polish National Research Institute (NASK).

Scientific studies indicate that pornography is highly addictive, using the same mechanisms as drugs, and its harmful effects on children are insidious. Just as society protects minors from nicotine, alcohol, and drugs, it has a duty to shield them from pornography.

What Does the Ministry of Digitization Want to Ban?

There is a risk that Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s ruling coalition will reject the citizens’ bill under the pretext that the government intends to present its own proposal. Almost every press conference organized by the Stop Pornography Drugs campaign has been followed by an announcement from the Ministry of Digitization regarding work on a government bill aimed at protecting children not only from pornography but also from undefined “harmful content” on the Internet.

The term “harmful content” is vague and broad, raising concerns about potential censorship. Would Christian content or material promoting a traditional, conservative view of family and society be considered “harmful” by some in the ruling coalition? Hence, there is real a risk that the government’s bill could be delayed, bogged down in lengthy debates, or even vetoed by the president. If MPs reject the citizens’ bill on March 6 or send it to a parliamentary commission where it is never put on the agenda, access to online pornography via smartphones, tablets, and computers used by Polish children will likely remain unrestricted during the current term of the Sejm.

For this reason, the organizers of the citizens’ initiative earnestly appeal to all MPs of goodwill to advance the citizens’ bill to a second reading. This issue should unite all political sides, as it concerns the welfare of children. No reasonable adult wants minors to have access to online pornography, especially given the nature of today’s highly explicit and often extreme content.

As more countries implement strict age verification measures, it is crucial that Poland does not lag behind. Unlike vague “harmful content” laws, the regulations passed in U.S. states, the UK, France, and Italy specifically target pornography. Hopefully, Poland will follow suit and ensure the protection of its youth from the often hardcore pornography that is currently so easily available to them online.

There is an opportunity to act. On March 6, Polish MPs may vote in the first reading of the citizens’ bill on the protection of minors from pornographic content—an important step toward safeguarding Polish children and youth from online pornography.