European Commission’s Age Verification Plan for Children’s Online Safety

• The European Commission is developing an age verification app under the Digital Services Act to prevent minors from accessing harmful online content while protecting adult users’ privacy.

• Critics argue that the move risks compromising privacy and fails to effectively safeguard children.

• Denmark, Greece, Spain, France, and Italy are among the first countries to work alongside the Commission with the aim of launching their own national age verification apps.

• The age verification solution will be further enhanced with new features, including additional options for users to prove they are over 18.

• Critics argue that age verification violates privacy rights and can make browsing activities easier to track and monetise.

• The European Commission has defended the privacy standards of its prototype app and stated that it will enable age verification while preventing privacy violations.

• French President Emmanuel Macron supports age verification and even wants to ban social media for users under 15 years of age.

• Some porn companies, like Pornhub, are against age verification due to disagreements on the ideal way to go about this process.

• Pornhub-owner Aylo emphasized the need for “device-based age verification” and warned that users unable to access Pornhub would go to smaller, less regulated sites potentially hosting illegal content.