{"id":13441,"date":"2026-04-29T11:41:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T11:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/13441\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T11:41:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T11:41:13","slug":"brussels-tells-eu-countries-to-use-its-age-check-app-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/13441\/","title":{"rendered":"Brussels tells EU countries to use its age-check app \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>European countries are looking for technical tools to check people\u2019s age online, with many capitals moving toward restricting children&#8217;s access to social media over mental health concerns. The Commission is pushing for countries to use the solution it has developed so that the EU takes a unified approach.<\/p>\n<p>The Commission on April 15 <a href=\"https:\/\/pro.politico.eu\/news\/216645\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">announced<\/a> its age verification app was \u201ctechnically ready\u201d but independent experts\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pro.politico.eu\/news\/216808\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">found<\/a>\u00a0it was affected by security and privacy flaws. The Commission has brushed off the claims of security vulnerabilities, saying the app was only a demonstration version and that the code would continue to be updated.<\/p>\n<p>Government officials from eight member countries <a href=\"https:\/\/pro.politico.eu\/news\/217354\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">told POLITICO<\/a> they are unsure or unwilling to adopt the EU app, with many saying they preferred their own national solutions.<\/p>\n<p>The EU&#8217;s message to capitals comes in the form of a <a href=\"https:\/\/digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu\/en\/library\/commission-sets-out-common-approach-eu-wide-age-verification-technologies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Commission recommendation<\/a>, formally approved this week, that suggests countries should roll out the age verification app as a standalone application or as part of a planned EU-wide digital ID that is being developed in the longer term.<\/p>\n<p>Virkkunen said the Commission will also publish a list of age verification solutions &#8220;that meet our high privacy and security standards&#8221; and will set up an Age Verification Scheme &#8220;with requirements for people providing proof of age and age verification solutions to meet.&#8221; The list will include both public and private providers of age verification solutions, Virkkunen said.<\/p>\n<p>In a separate announcement, the Commission warned Meta on Wednesday that the company is not doing enough to keep kids under 13 off Instagram and Facebook \u2014 telling the company <a href=\"https:\/\/pro.politico.eu\/news\/217484\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">earlier Wednesday<\/a> that it must change the design of the platforms or face a fine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"European countries are looking for technical tools to check people\u2019s age online, with many capitals moving toward restricting&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[278,18,464,403,404,9181,467,784,351,472,2640,235,279,5666],"class_list":{"0":"post-13441","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brussels","8":"tag-big-tech","9":"tag-brussels","10":"tag-content-moderation","11":"tag-cybersecurity","12":"tag-data-protection","13":"tag-digital-id","14":"tag-digital-services-act","15":"tag-henna-virkkunen","16":"tag-media","17":"tag-platforms","18":"tag-privacy","19":"tag-security","20":"tag-social-media","21":"tag-youth"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116487814239629402","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}