BRUSSELS — The European Commission’s age verification app is now technically ready and will soon be available for EU citizens to use in order to prove their age when accessing online platforms, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced Tuesday.
In July 2025, the European Commission released its guidelines for protecting minors online under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) and made public a “white label” age verification app intended to help sites and platforms comply with age verification rules under the DSA.
The app then entered a “pilot phase,” during which the software was tried out in a number of EU member states. Those countries incorporated the app in their digital wallets or published versions of it on app stores, customized to national needs — though privacy-preserving features cannot be modified.
Aylo, which operates Pornhub and other high-traffic sites, has been participating in that pilot program.
In her statement, von der Leyen called the app “a free and easy-to-use solution that can shield our children from harmful and illegal content.”
“First, it is user-friendly,” von der Leyen said. “You download the app. You set it up with your passport or ID card. You then prove your age when accessing online services. Second, it respects the highest privacy standards in the world. Users will prove their age without revealing any other personal information. Put simply, it is completely anonymous: users cannot be tracked. Third, the app works on any device — phone, tablet, computer, you name it. And, finally, it is fully open source – everyone can check the code. This means that our partner countries can also use it. This is very important, that this can be used by our global partners.
“But more importantly, online platforms can easily rely on our age verification app,” von der Leyen added. “So there are no more excuses.”
EU member states France, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Ireland are “frontrunners” in adopting the app, von der Leyen said.
“They are planning to integrate the app into their national wallets,” she noted. “I hope more Member States and private sector will follow so that every citizen can soon use the app.”
Von der Leyen cautioned that the Commission will have “zero tolerance” for companies that do not respect children’s rights.
“This is why we are moving ahead with full speed and determination on the enforcement of our European rules,” she said. “We are holding accountable those online platforms that do not protect our kids enough.”
As an example, European Commission Executive Vice President Henna Virkkunen cited the Commission’s recent actions against PornHub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos. Last month, a Commission investigation preliminarily found those platforms to be in breach of Digital Services Act provisions intended to shield minors from adult content.
“They simply do not have proper age verification tools in place to keep our children away from their adult content,” Virkkunen said. “As platforms do not have proper age verification tools in place, we came up with the solution ourselves.”
Virkkunen added that she is setting up an EU-wide coordination mechanism for EU accreditation of AV solutions, “to ensure that we continue to build one solution for the EU, not 27 different ones.”
“Our blueprint is open-source, and any private company is free to use the blueprint to develop innovative solutions,” Virkkunen added. “We only have two conditions: respect the privacy standard. And make sure we have the same technical solution everywhere in the EU.”
Shortly after the announcement, reports began appearing about vulnerabilities in the app, along with speculation that the open-source approach could make hacking easier. On Friday, biometrics industry news site Biometric Update quoted EC Digital Spokesperson Thomas Regnier as stating, “A new version has just or will soon today be updated ... the code will be constantly updated and improved. It’s open source, and I cannot today exclude or prejudge if further updates will be required or not.”
