{"id":144292,"date":"2025-05-30T14:15:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T14:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/144292\/"},"modified":"2025-05-30T14:15:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T14:15:09","slug":"eu-to-launch-age-verification-app-for-online-use-in-july","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/144292\/","title":{"rendered":"EU to Launch Age Verification App for Online Use in July"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/european-union.europa.eu\/index_en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">European Union<\/a> reportedly plans to introduce an age verification app in July and may introduce rules requiring online platforms to protect minors after that.<\/p>\n<p>The new app will enable users to verify their age without disclosing personal information to online platforms, the Financial Times (FT) <a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/6b672468-a085-47dc-b195-daa98d6a591b\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">reported<\/a> Friday (May 30), citing its interview with <a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/commission.europa.eu\/about\/organisation\/college-commissioners\/henna-virkkunen_en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Henna Virkkunen<\/a>, executive vice president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy at the <a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/commission.europa.eu\/index_en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">European Commission<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The availability of the app could enable the EU to enforce laws protecting minors online, the report said. Virkkunen said she hopes tech companies will voluntarily adopt practices to protect minors so that laws are not required, per the report.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe protection of minors is a very important priority for us, and we will take more action here,\u201d Virkkunen said, according to the report.<\/p>\n<p>The European Commission announced Tuesday (May 27) that it launched formal investigations into four major adult content websites over alleged violations of the <a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/commission.europa.eu\/strategy-and-policy\/priorities-2019-2024\/europe-fit-digital-age\/digital-services-act_en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Digital Services Act<\/a> (DSA), citing inadequate <a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/cpi-posts\/european-commission-investigates-adult-sites-over-dsa-non-compliance\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">age verification<\/a> measures and other failures to adequately protect minors from accessing inappropriate material.<\/p>\n<p>The DSA mandates that online platforms designated as \u201cvery large online platforms\u201d (VLOPs) establish robust mechanisms to prevent minors from accessing explicit content.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur priority is to protect minors and allow them to navigate safely online,\u201d Virkkunen said in a Tuesday <a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/commission\/presscorner\/detail\/en\/ip_25_1339\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">press release<\/a> announcing the investigations. \u201cTogether with the digital service coordinators in the member states we are determined to tackle any potential harm to young online users.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In another <a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/digital-identity\/2024\/ec-adopts-technical-standards-for-eu-digital-identity-wallets\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">identity<\/a>-related project, the European Commission announced in November that it adopted technical standards for cross-border <a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/digital-building-blocks\/sites\/display\/EUDIGITALIDENTITYWALLET\/EU+Digital+Identity+Wallet+Home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">European Digital Identity (eID) Wallets<\/a> in the EU, saying this will help member states build their own wallets and release them by the end of 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The wallets will enable users to identify themselves online and offline; will be available to any EU citizen, resident or business in the EU; and will be optional.<\/p>\n<p>In Friday\u2019s FT report, Virkkunen also said the EU is working to ensure that online platforms set children\u2019s accounts as private by default and that they avoid platform designs that could be addictive.<\/p>\n<p>For all PYMNTS digital transformation coverage, subscribe to the daily <a href=\"https:\/\/pymnts.com\/subscribe\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Digital Transformation Newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>                        See More In:                        <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/tag\/digital-transformation\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">digital transformation<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/tag\/eu\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">EU<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/tag\/international-2\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">international<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/tag\/mobile-applications\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mobile Applications<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/tag\/news\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">News<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/tag\/privacy\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">privacy<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/tag\/pymnts-news\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">PYMNTS News<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/tag\/regulations\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">regulations<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/tag\/security\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Security<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/tag\/technology\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Technology<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/tag\/whats-hot\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">What&#8217;s Hot<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The European Union reportedly plans to introduce an age verification app in July and may introduce rules requiring&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[10443,2000,299,5187,1699,522,24802,12,6512,3279,8948,811,53,3281],"class_list":["post-144292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-digital-transformation","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-international","tag-mobile-applications","tag-news","tag-privacy","tag-pymnts-news","tag-regulations","tag-security","tag-technology","tag-whats-hot"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114597207957225953","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}