Germany

[DE] New Youth Protection Guidelines

IRIS 2005-5:1/9

Carmen Palzer

Institute of European Media Law (EMR), Saarbrücken/Brussels

On 25 February 2005, Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle Fernsehen (a voluntary self-monitoring body for TV companies - FSF) adopted the final part of the guidelines it has issued on the application of its monitoring system. This part concerns "unlawful programmes". According to the conditions of acceptance, such guidelines must be notified to the Kommission für Jugendmedienschutz (Commission for youth protection in the media - KJM) at least four weeks before their entry into force. This happened on 3 March 2005, which meant that the guidelines could enter into force on 4 April 2005. The guidelines are designed to make the monitoring of TV programmes from a youth protection point of view more transparent and to help standardise the decision-making process.

For its part, on 1 March 2005 the KJM, on the basis of Articles 15.2, 8.1 and 9.1 of the Jugendmedienschutz-Staatsvertrag (Inter-State Agreement on youth protection in the media - JMStV), issued draft common guidelines for the regional media authorities on guaranteeing the protection of human dignity and young people (Jugendschutzrichtlinien - JuSchRiL). These guidelines define, amongst other things, concepts linked to unlawful content in the sense of Art. 4 JMStV and content likely to harm the development of young people in the sense of Art. 5 JMStV. Examples include "virtual representations", "pornography" and "harm to development". They also specify broadcast times for particular types of TV programmes. In the telemedia field, the draft contains rules on closed user groups and youth protection software.

Also at its meeting on 1 March 2005, the KJM approved technical measures to protect young people on the Internet for the first time. These function by blocking access for children and young people to unsuitable content. They were proposed by cigarette manufacturer Phillip Morris GmbH and British American Tobacco Germany(BAT). Both systems involve different methods of PIN number verification.


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This article has been published in IRIS Legal Observations of the European Audiovisual Observatory.