“Ensuring our kids and younger persons are secure on-line is of paramount significance to this Fee,” stated EU tech coverage chief Henna Virkkunen. “The rules on the safety of minors for on-line platforms, mixed with the brand new age verification blueprint, are an enormous step ahead on this regard. Platforms haven’t any excuse to be persevering with practices that put youngsters in danger.”
The age verification app is designed to permit customers to show they’re over 18 when accessing restricted grownup content material on-line, serving to the EU to crack down on platforms which might be failing to satisfy obligations beneath legal guidelines just like the DSA, and enabling corporations to undertake the bloc’s verification toolbox as an alternative of creating their very own. The EU Fee says that app customers will retain full management over their private data, similar to their actual age or id, and that the web content material they view will stay non-public.
The verification app prototype can be “examined and additional personalized in collaboration with Member States, on-line platforms and end-users,” in keeping with the EU Fee, with Denmark, Greece, Spain, France, and Italy aiming to launch nationwide age verification apps. It’s positioned as a brief answer that can be outdated by the EU Digital Identification Pockets that’s anticipated to launch in 2026, which goals to supply a manner for “European residents, residents and companies to show who they’re when accessing digital companies” and a spot to “safely retailer, share and signal essential digital paperwork.”
Whereas the bloc’s DSA rulebook doesn’t impose particular age verification necessities, web sites and on-line platforms are obligated to guard the “well being, bodily, psychological, and ethical growth” of minors who use their companies, and supply them with the “highest degree of privateness, security, and safety.” The brand new steering urges on-line platforms to deal with issues round exposing youngsters to dangerous content material, cyberbullying, undesirable interactions with strangers, and addictive design options.
In Might, the EU launched investigations into 4 giant grownup content material web sites — Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX, and XVideos — over issues that they have been failing to have acceptable age verification instruments in place to stop youngsters from accessing pornographic content material. The Fee stated on the time that it was open to accepting commitments that will treatment these issues, which can embrace the implementation of the EU age verification app.
