A “green-pass” for social: the Ue app for age verification arrives. Von Der Leyen: “It serves control, as for alcohol”

According to the president of the EU Commission, the tool will be easy to use and totally anonymous. The application was created along the lines of the one used during the Covid pandemic.

«Because the platforms do not have adequate age verification tools we have developed an internal solution», said European Commission Executive Vice President Henna Virkkunen for Technological Sovereignty during a press point. At the heart of the occasion is a long-awaited announcement: «Ours age verification app is technically ready and will soon be available to citizens”, this is how the President of the European Commission Ursula Von Der Leyen presented the new tool which “will allow users to prove your agewhen they access online platforms. Just like shops ask for an identity document from those who buy alcoholic drinks.”

President Von Der Leyen explained that the app was designed along the lines of the one used during the Covid period: «It follows the same principles, the same model. First, it’s easy to use. You download the app, configure it with your passport or identity card. Then you prove your age when you access online services.” Adding that «respects the highest privacy standards to the world” because it will allow you to prove your age without revealing other personal information: “It is completely anonymous. The users they cannot be tracked». Finally, the President of the Commission added that the app, in addition to being completely open source (and therefore its code can be studied by individual nations of the Union, but also in other countries that are evaluating similar solutions), «works on any device: phone, tablet, computer”.

The times are tight: in fact, a mechanism will be established from the end of this month coordination at European level for the integration of this system in all EU countries. «We need a structured approach for EU accreditation of national solutions and for Member States to ensure that age credentials can be issued easily and across the EU», commented Virkkunen, adding that the aim is to «ensure a single solution for the EU, not 27 different ones.”

On the same topic

Thus the European Union has caught up with the global debate on access to platforms for teenagers. An intention that had already been announced last September, when von Der Leyen herself he had declared that would be monitored the Australian case — the country has The use of social media is prohibited for minors under 16 years of age, obliging the platforms to enforce the tax. Two months later, MEPs approved (by a large majority) a resolution on age limits for access to social media.

“It is up to parents to raise their children, not to the platforms,” added the President of the Commission, specifying that social platforms they offer an environment that creates “dependence” and it is not an environment that is “good for young developing minds.” A not too veiled reference to the recent and historic victory of one young woman what he had done cause to the major platforms for having developed a dangerous social media addiction.