Holiday Gift Guide »

France mulling laws to ban kid-friendly cellphones

Categories: Announcements
By: , IntoMobile
Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 at 11:59 AM

France has been an opponent of cellphone use by children and teens, prompting the French Health Ministry to advise parents to limit their kids’ use of mobile phones. Studies on the effects of mobile phone radiation on humans have been largely inconclusive, but it seems that France is taking a pro-active approach.

And, to further the country’s push to protect children from cellphone radiation, the French Environment Minister, Jean-Louis Borloo, has announced plans for new regulations that would make it illegal to market mobile phones to children. Borloo is also looking to create legislation that would ban the sale of kid-friendly mobile phones designed for the 6-and-under crowd. The new legislation would essentially kill off the kid-oriented handset market in France.

France is also looking to make it mandatory to sell mobile phones with hands-free headsets, thereby reducing exposure to any potentially harmful cellphone radiation.

Rather than waiting for conclusive evidence on the potential dangers of mobile phone radiation, France’s “protect now, research later” philosophy is commendable. Especially since any potential side-effects from radiation exposure would have a larger impact on still-developing children.

Still, we’ll be keeping our mobile phones close to us at all times.

[Via: CellularNews]

About The Author

Will Park

Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...