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The EU is launching a new age verification app in July, establishing a tool that will potentially allow for tighter enforcement of rules requiring online platforms to protect minors online.
The app, a precursor to the EU’s digital identity wallet due in 2026, will allow users to verify their age without disclosing personal information to platforms.
The EU has not imposed a single age-verification requirement on online platforms, but it has put legal obligations on sites that serve minors or handle pornographic or harmful content.
The rollout of an EU age-verification app could allow the EU to take a tougher enforcement approach with platforms that it feels are not doing enough on their own to assess and manage risks.
“The protection of minors is a very important priority for us, and we will take more action here,” the EU’s tech chief Henna Virkkunen told the Financial Times, adding that she expected greater effort from social media giants.
The Finnish politician urged the tech companies to voluntarily adopt robust measures to protect children rather than wait for governments to step in and leave them subject to different regimes around the globe.
“It would also from the platform’s perspective be very good if they would create a kind of design with a very high level of security, privacy and safety for minors,” she said.
Brussels also wants to take extra steps to ensure setting children’s accounts as private by default to reduce the risks of unwanted contact by strangers and curbing addictive platform design.
Meta and TikTok are already under investigation for their potentially addictive designs and so-called “rabbit-hole effects” — probes that could lead to fines if the companies fail to comply with EU rules.
“Many of the online platforms are using a design that is very addictive,” Virkkunen said. “Minors are using [these apps] hours and hours, they spend their whole day on mobile. Of course, this has an impact on their wellbeing.”
The European Commission earlier this week also announced it is investigating four large adult content websites — Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos — over concerns that online via age verification measures fail to protect minors.
Several European countries are pushing to set an additional EU-wide minimum age to log on to social media.
But the EU’s tech chief said it would be “challenging” to agree on an age limit given the different services and the different cultures in EU countries. Instead, she argued it would be better to rely on operators to “assess and mitigate the risks they are posing” by the design of their platforms.
Despite transatlantic tensions over digital regulation — including threats from Brussels to target US tech exports if trade talks with Donald Trump fail — child protection is one area where Washington and Brussels agree, Virkkunen said.
During a recent trip to Washington, she discussed online safety with chief executives of Big Tech groups and US officials.
“Also in the US there is a lot of discussion about protection of minors, also in other countries worldwide,” Virkkunen said. “This is now a high priority.”
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