The EU approach to age verification

The Commission is collaborating with Member States to develop a unified age verification solution that is privacy-preserving, user-friendly, and interoperable. 

This initiative aims to allow EU users to prove they are old enough to access legally age restricted sites, starting with being over 18 years of age for accessing adult-restricted online content, such as pornography, gambling, alcohol, and others.

Short-term solution

The Commission is facilitating a temporary age verification solution until the EU Digital Identity Wallet is available by the end of 2026. The design and development of this solution is supported by a contract awarded to T-Scy (Scytales and T-Systems), which will provide a white-label app in summer 2025. This app will be customisable to allow for translation into national language(s) among other things.

Technical specifications and testing

The project has started, with technical specifications, source code and a beta release of the solution already published.

The solution will be interoperable with the EU Digital Identity Wallet, and the Commission is engaging with Member States and industry stakeholders for beta testing.