EU starts testing age verification app to protect kids from harmful content online

The European Commission has started testing an age verification app in order to ensure that their young people aren’t exposed to age-inappropriate content and behavior online.

The Commission says the app is just a blueprint, which means it can be used as a basis by EU member countries to develop similar customized apps that can better cater their national needs and interests.

For now, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy and Spain are the countries wherein this blueprint is being tested.

The Commission says the app provides a safe and private way for users to prove if they are over 18 years while trying to access, for example, online pornogrpahy content or gambling services. Additionally, the app can also be used in offline scenarios wherein age verification is often required, for example while buying alcohol.

Talking about data privacy, the Commission says third-party service providers will be the ones verifying the age, while the platforms – like gambling websites – will only get to know whether or not the user is 18 years old. Here’s exactly what the announcement says in this regard:

When users will activate the app, once it becomes available at the national level, their age will be verified by the issuer using detailed personal data, like the date of birth. However, online services will only receive a proof that the user is over 18, without any other personal details. The processes of issuance and presentation will be handled by separate entities, ensuring privacy. Moreover, the proof provider will not be informed about the services where the proof is used. Each proof will only be used once, to prevent cross-service tracking.

Part for Europe’s Digital Services Act (DSA), this age verification initiative is being labelled as a “mini wallet,” and is likely modeled after Greece’s Kids Wallet app, which recently got support from Meta as well. This new blueprint app stands on the same fundamentals based on which the EU will launch the European Digital Identity Wallets (EUDIW) next year.

You can read the complete announcement here. Here is a small video of Henna Virkkunen (European Commission Vice-President for Technology) talking on the matter:

It’s worth mentioning that the EU has also published guidelines aimed at protecting minors’ online safety. Some of these guidelines include keeping minors’ accounts private, prohibiting the ability to download/screenshot content posted by minors, and disabling by default addictive features such as streaks, ephemeral content, read receipts, autoplay, or push notifications. To know more about these guidelines, read the announcement here.

And here is the the top level announcement which combines both these developments (app & guidelines).