Europe is getting serious about online age verification

Five member states have already begun trialling this solution this year, but they do not all appear to be on the same page. It was pointed out in the press conference that France and Denmark are ahead by a large margin, while Greece, Spain and Italy are lagging behind. This is why some experts doubt that the digital wallet will take effect within the specified time frame.

An alternative to the American model

Already visible players in the European age verification market include Yoti, which TikTok uses in Europe for this purpose alongside other methods such as credit cards and documents, and Persona, an identity and age verification provider used by platforms such as Roblox, Discord, and Reddit.

The latter has a more data-intensive model, which the Commission says it wants to avoid. In fact, its services include fingerprint verification, facial recognition, scanning a person’s face to compare it to someone on a certain list, and retaining all this data for up to three years.

In February 2026, it was also revealed that Persona publicly disclosed thousands of files online. The company responded by saying that this was an isolated testing environment and that the data was not actually disclosed, in addition to that it does not work with US government agencies to provide them with data on users.

However, the US model shows the risks of age verification based on large-scale collection and analysis of identifying data. This highlights the need for a European alternative, one that takes the concept to another level: not so much “prove your identity so I can verify your age” as “just prove your age, without revealing anything else”.

Brussels is promoting an open source architecture, leaving room for both member states and market actors to publish national or derivative versions. Scytales and T-Systems were mentioned during the press conference as services to look forward to in Europe. Whoever develops the system will still have to consider a “triangular” structure, officials say: a third party certifies that the user meets the required attribute, that is, that he is above a certain age, without the site receiving documents or other personal data. To make the concept more understandable, the authority cited the experience of Covid certificates.

A glaring loophole

However, there remains a clear distance between the technical promise and the social reality of the problem. As stated in the press conference Small wallet It seems designed primarily to prevent the site from knowing too much about the user, but much less so to solve the most trivial transgression of all: a minor’s use of an adult’s phone, credentials, or identity. In other words, the system may reduce the amount of personal data in circulation, but it does not automatically eliminate the risk of bypassing age verification in practice.

However, a small wallet currently seems to be the most promising solution. But the Commission made clear that this is not the only possible solution. The door remains open to alternatives, provided they are “equally effective.” Pornhub is already participating in the beta phase, while other operators have been invited to participate.

In short, Europe could become the first major political laboratory where age verification ceases to be a formality and becomes a real infrastructure, with all the promise, and all the risks, that this entails – and we should not lose sight of it.

This story originally appeared in WIRED Italia and was translated from Italian.