Kids Act: how the EU app will verify age

The European Commission “proposed on Thursday a ban on the use of social media for children under 13, allowing the use of accounts under parental supervision for children up to 15 years old,” media reports have reported in recent days.

What they don't mention is that the implementation of the measure will be based on a tool created by the European Commission itself — a free age verification app for smartphones, open source, which will inform the platform if the user meets the age limit, without revealing their identity…

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If passed, the proposed Kids Act would be the largest restriction on access to social media in the world, covering 450 million people in 27 countries. The EU-developed age verification app is being gradually rolled out across member states, with seven countries participating in the pilot: Cyprus, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy and Spain. The Commission expects the app to be available across the EU by the end of 2026.

It will also be used to prove that users are over 18 when accessing websites with adult content — a restriction already in place under the Digital Services Act.

The system is decentralised. Member States will manage it through issuing bodies that they will designate, while the evidence will be stored on the user's phone. There will be no central EU database of age data or information on who verified whom. The user will prove their age once to a nationally designated issuing body — an organisation controlled by the Member State, which could be a digital identity provider, a bank or a post office.

When accessing a restricted website, the application will verify that the user is over the required age. The platform will only receive a “yes” or “no” response. Issuance and verification will be carried out by different entities. The provider of the credential will not be informed of which service used this credential. Each credential will be valid only once, thus preventing the user’s activity from being tracked across different services. No identification documents or biometric data will be stored. The code is open source, allowing for any independent verification.

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Although the press releases will range from very select to rare, I said I'd pass...because sometimes the editors hide.