How the EU's new age-verification app will keep children safe online

The EU is proposing more than age limits for children online, with a common verification system and rules designed to make platforms safer by default

 The European Union (EU) is moving towards a common system to verify the age of children online. Its proposed app would allow platforms to check whether someone meets an age limit while keeping their identity private.

 

The European Commission has proposed this as part of the EU KIDS Act, or Kids Internet Design and Safety Act, which would introduce common age rules for children across EU countries and require online services to make their products safer for minors.

 

The proposal still needs to be negotiated and approved by the European Parliament and the EU Council before it can become law.

 

What is the EU age-verification app?

 

The European Commission says the app can verify whether a user is above a particular age threshold while keeping their identity private. It can be set up using an identity document, while the verification system itself does not retain identity documents or biometric data. The technology is also open source.

 

 

The system is designed to work roughly like this:

 

• A user proves their age once through a nationally designated provider, such as a digital identity provider, bank or post office
• The app then creates a digital proof of age
• When the user visits a service with an age restriction, the platform receives only a yes-or-no answer about whether the user meets the required age
• The platform does not receive the user’s identity documents
• The proof is designed to work only once, which helps prevent different services from linking a person’s activity and tracking them across platforms

 

This is known as a 'zero-knowledge approach', because the service can establish that someone meets an age requirement without learning their identity. The Commission says every EU member state would have to provide at least one free way to prove age, so people would not need an existing digital ID to use the system.

 

The app is already being piloted in several EU countries, and the Commission expects it to be available across the EU by the end of 2026.

 

What does the EU KIDS Act propose?

 

The age-verification system is only one part of the wider KIDS Act. The proposed regulation would introduce a gradual system of access based on age.

 

Under 13: Children would not be allowed to have social media accounts. They could still access certain child-friendly video services through an account controlled by a parent or guardian.

 

From 13 to under 15: Children could use limited, parent-supervised accounts. These would have parental controls, a maximum daily limit of one hour, and parental approval for contacts.

 

15 and above: Young people could open and manage their own accounts on services required to meet the EU’s safety standards.

 

The rules would also extend beyond conventional social media. They would cover services including video-sharing platforms, online games, app stores, and AI companions and chatbots used by minors.

 

The EU plan goes beyond social media

 

A major part of the KIDS Act concerns how platforms are designed, rather than simply who can access them.

 

For children, services would have to restrict features that can encourage excessive use, including infinite scrolling, certain reward mechanisms and push notifications during sleeping hours. Unsolicited contact from strangers would also be restricted, while children’s profiles would be private by default.

 

The proposal also targets recommendation systems. For minors, feeds would have to prioritise safety and quality rather than simply maximising engagement, while tracking-based personalisation would be switched off by default. AI companions and chatbots would also have to be off by default for children.

 

How the EU plan differs from other countries

 

Countries are taking different approaches to limiting children’s access to social media and making online platforms safer. Australia, for example, introduced a law in December 2025 that prevents major social media platforms from allowing under-16s to hold accounts. However, unlike the EU proposal, Australia does not have a single government-backed age-verification system, leaving platforms responsible for choosing how they verify users’ ages, including through third-party providers.

 

The EU is instead trying to standardise the verification system itself. Rather than asking Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and other platforms to develop their own age checks, the EU would provide a common, privacy-preserving system to reduce the need for users to repeatedly share personal information.

 

Other European countries are taking their own approaches. Greece and Spain are moving towards restrictions on younger users, while France’s attempt to introduce a national ban on social media for under-15s was blocked by its Constitutional Council in August. The court said the measure disproportionately restricted freedom of expression and did not provide sufficient safeguards for protecting users’ privacy and personal data.

 

Meanwhile, India’s existing framework differs by focusing on platform responsibilities, online safety, parental controls, and content-specific age gating. India’s IT Rules require platforms providing adult-rated content to implement reliable age verification, alongside parental locks for content rated U/A 13+ or higher.

 

The EU proposal differs as it brings together age limits, a common verification system, and safety-by-design requirements in a single framework, rather than leaving individual countries and platforms to develop separate approaches.