No more excuses’: Von der Leyen says EU age checking app is ready

BRUSSELS — The European Union’s age verification application is ready to be rolled out to protect kids online, the bloc’s chief Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday.

“Our European age verification app is technically ready” and will “soon” be “available for citizens to use,” the European Commission president said at a press conference.

The app is a critical part of the EU’s plans to keep children safe online. The technology would allow people to prove their age through government-approved, verified systems. The EU said it has ensured it would also protect citizens’ privacy rights and personal data.

“We are holding online platforms accountable that do not protect enough our kids. The new age verification solution and the enforcement of our rules go hand in hand,” said von der Leyen. “Online platforms can easily rely on our age verification app so there are no more excuses.”

The Commission expects European-wide apps to be ready to download in coming weeks, developed by companies that will be verified by the Commission, a senior official told reporters. EU countries will launch their own versions later this year, the official said.

There are three ways people can verify their age: via their passport, a national ID or via trusted providers such as banks or schools. That can then be used by the tech platforms to check if a person trying to access a service is of the required age.

A senior Commission official said in a briefing to reporters that there were “multiple excuses” used by most big platforms to avoid verifying the ages of their users. The EU’s solution is the “easiest age verification system” for platforms because they don’t have to log any info about users, the official said.

They admitted that it will be “annoying” to verify one’s age online, but said that there is a balance to be struck between inconveniencing people and protecting children.

Von der Leyen has pushed forward EU initiatives to protect minors from online harms and risks to mental health posed by social media. Many national governments are also working on social media bans for minors and teenagers, with France leading that push.

The EU app has been tested in France, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Ireland in past months. It is meant to work together with other, national “digital wallet” solutions: “We need a structured approach for EU accreditation of national solutions,” the EU’s tech chief Henna Virkkunen said Wednesday.

Virkkunen added that people using the app “remain in full control of your data.”

The Commission official said the bloc’s intention is that the EU app becomes a global standard, similar to the vaccination app used during the Covid crisis.

Von der Leyen has convened a panel of experts to draft a recommendation on an EU-wide social media ban by the summer. The panel will hold its second meeting on Thursday. Von der Leyen will attend the meeting, an agenda seen by POLITICO showed.