What is the European Commission's age verification plan to protect children online?

The Hindu

19-07-2025

The story so far: The European Commission is working on an age verification app that is meant to stop children from accessing unsafe content online while protecting the privacy of adult internet users. Critics, however, claim this comes at the cost of user privacy.
What is the European Commission age verification debate about?
The European Union has in the recent past enacted multiple pieces of legislation to regulate the operations of large online platforms such as e-commerce giants, social media companies, and even pornography-hosting websites. In particular, the European Commission has highlighted some risks that children face when they are online, including platform designs that encourage digital addiction, cyber bullying, exposure to harmful content, and unwanted contact from strangers.
Digital advocates have previously recommended that the user interface of a large digital platform could be adjusted on the basis of the user's age, with children receiving private accounts and having their safety or well-being features turned on by default. When it comes to platforms such as porn sites, children ideally should not be able to access or even accidentally see explicit content. One way this could be done is through an app that verifies the user's age online, in order to be certain that children are not using adults' accounts.
The European Commission on July 14 presented guidelines concerning the protection of minors on online platforms, along with a prototype of an age-verification app under the Digital Services Act (DSA). Development of the age verification blueprint began early this year and is built on the same technical specifications as the European Digital Identity Wallets (eID) that are slated to be rolled out before the end of 2026, per the European Commission, with the two services meant to be compatible.
Denmark, Greece, Spain, France, and Italy are some of the first countries that will work alongside the Commission with the aim of launching their own national age verification apps in the future, in their own languages.
'During the pilot phase, the age verification solution will be further enhanced with new features. Apart from eID, further updates will include additional options for users to prove they are over 18. The age verification will also be enhanced with the latest technical solutions (zero-knowledge proof) to ensure the highest level of privacy protection,' said the European Commission in its post.
How will age verification affect the privacy of adults?
While those in favour of creating a safer internet for children are in support of making age verification mandatory to access porn websites, critics of the move believe that it violates privacy rights and can put at risk their security online or make their browsing activities easier to track and monetise.
However, the European Commission has defended the privacy standards of its prototype app and said that it will enable age verification while preventing privacy violations. The regulator added that the technical specifications and the open-source age verification blueprint were freely available to view and use as well.
'It will, for example, allow users to easily prove they are over 18 when accessing restricted adult content online, while remaining in full control of any other personal information, such as a user's exact age or identity. No one would be able to track, see or reconstruct what content individual users are consulting,' stated the European Commission.
Meanwhile, at the topmost levels of the French government, President Emmanuel Macron also supports age verification and even wants to ban social media for users who are under 15 years of age. France is one of the countries that will first try out the age verification app prototype.
There are also ongoing discussions as to whether certain social media platforms that contain adult content, such as X, can be classified as porn platforms. This too comes with implications for the user experience of adult social media users across the EU.
Why are some porn companies against age verification?
While most companies agree that children using the internet should be protected from explicit content, cybersecurity threats, and social media addiction, they often disagree on the ideal way to go about this process.
For example, Pornhub-owner Aylo's main contention is whether age verification takes place at the website level or not. In a company post on June 26, Aylo stressed on the need for 'device-based age verification.' According to the company, age verification should have been carried out by Apple, Google, and/or Microsoft long before an underaged user even arrives at an adult website such as Pornhub.
For close to two weeks in June, internet users in France who tried to access pornography platforms such as Pornhub, YouPorn, and RedTube encountered a largely black screen with a notice, or a historic painting with a call to action against the French government's move to implement mandatory age verification for adult platforms.
Aylo also warned that users unable to access Pornhub would go to smaller, less regulated sites potentially hosting illegal content. It unblocked its websites in late June after a Paris administrative tribunal's decision over the rule's unconfirmed compatibility with EU laws. But Aylo's next actions remain to be seen as the top administrative court affirmed this month that age verification was a must.
'Data breaches happen daily. Forcing you to enter sensitive personal information repeatedly creates an unacceptable security risk we refuse to impose on our users. We refuse to compromise your privacy with measures that, ironically, fail to effectively protect children,' said Aylo in a statement on its website on July 15.
'To make the internet safer for everyone, every phone, tablet or computer should start as a kid-safe device. Only verified adults should be allowed to unlock access to age-inappropriate content,' said the company.