“Ensure that our children and young people are safe online are of paramount importance for this commission,” said EU technological policy, Henna Virkkunen. “The guidelines on the protection of minors for online platforms, combined with the new age verification plan, are a huge step forward in this regard. Platforms have no excuse for pursuing the practices that endanger children. ”
The age verification application is designed to allow users to prove that they are over 18 years old when they access the content of restricted adults online, helping the EU repress platforms that do not comply with the obligations under laws such as DSA, and allowing companies to adopt the block checking tool instead of developing their own. The EU Commission indicates that users of the application will retain total control of their personal information, such as their exact age or identity, and that the online content they see will remain private.
The prototype of the verification application will be “tested and personalized more in collaboration with the Member States, online platforms and end users”, according to the European Commission, with Denmark, Greece, Spain, France and Italy aimed at launching national age verification applications. It is positioned as a temporary solution which will be replaced by the EU’s digital identity portfolio which should be launched in 2026, which aims to provide a means of “European citizens, residents and companies to prove who they are when they access digital services” and a place to “store, share, share and sign major digital documents”.
Although the Bloc DSA rules book does not impose specific age verification requirements, online websites and platforms are forced to protect “health, physical, mental and moral development” of minors who use their services and provide them with the “highest level of confidentiality, security and security”. The new advice urges online platforms to respond to concerns related to children’s exposure to harmful content, cyberbullying, unwanted interactions with foreigners and addictive design features.
In May, the EU launched surveys on four major adult content websites – Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVIDEOS – concerning the concerns that they were not in place of appropriate age verification tools to prevent children from accessing pornographic content. The Commission said at the time that it was open to accepting commitments that would remedy these concerns, which may include the implementation of the EU age verification application.
