EU age verification app: Five countries begin testing
Before accessing adult content, users in the EU will soon be required to prove their age. Five countries are now beginning trial runs.
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Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, and Spain are the first EU countries to test a technology developed on behalf of the EU Commission for age verification on the internet. The Brussels authority announced this and explained that it is the “gold standard” for age verification on the internet. The aim is to enable users to easily prove online that they are at least 18 years old without the entity they are providing this information to learning anything else about them. This is intended for pornography websites, for example. However, neither the website nor anyone else should be able to track, view, or reconstruct what content users view.
Criticism from all sides
According to the EU Commission, the application now presented is completely open source, “robust, user-friendly, secure, and fully compatible” with the planned European digital wallet (EUid). The prototype can be integrated into other applications or used on its own. The five pioneers will now discuss with Brussels how they intend to proceed with the introduction so that they can publish national applications for verifying the age of users. Thorough testing is planned, for example, with pornography platforms.
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Once the technology is mature, it could also be used for other services, Brussels explains. It is conceivable, for example, that it could be used to prove that someone is old enough to buy alcohol. Guidelines based on the Digital Services Act (DSA) have been drawn up and are now also available, specifying exactly when age verification is necessary. According to these guidelines, platforms that host adult content and those that “pose a high risk to the safety of minors” are affected. The age verification methods should be “accurate, reliable, robust, non-intrusive, and non-discriminatory.”
The proposed obligations have not been well received by those affected, mainly because neither the platforms nor the app store operators want to be responsible for them. Meta, Google, and Apple, for example, have already expressed concerns. But providers of pornography portals have also protested. Criticism of the Commission's plans also comes from civil society and civil rights organizations. They argue that current systems often fail to provide effective protection, but undermine privacy and convey a false sense of security.
(mho)
