The EU's age verification app for online platforms is technically ready and will soon be available to use, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said.
Rather than banning social media use for under-16s, the Irish Government is developing a digital wallet which will verify a user's age based on their PPS number.
Ms von der Leyen listed Ireland as one of the member states that are "frontrunners" and "making great progress" along with France, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Spain and Cyprus.
"They are planning to integrate the app into their national wallets," she said.
"This app will allow users to prove their age when accessing online platforms, just like shops ask for proof of age for people buying alcoholic beverages in a shop."
Ms von der Leyan said the app is user-friendly. "You download the app. You set it up with your passport or ID card. You then prove your age when accessing online services," she said.
She added that the app "respects the highest privacy standards in the world".
Privacy campaigners in Ireland have expressed concerns about requiring people to share their PPS numbers in order to gain access to online platforms.
EU officials said the EU app will serve as a benchmark to test compliance and the effectiveness of alternative methods.
"Online platforms can easily rely on our age verification app. So there are no more excuses," von der Leyen said.
"Europe offers a free and easy to use solution that can shield our children from harmful and illegal content".
The app is "completely anonymous" to ensure people cannot be tracked when accessing websites, and based on open-source code, allowing non-EU states to adopt it if they wish.
Alternatives would have to respect similar privacy standards, Brussels said.
"We don't want platforms to scan our passport or face," EU's digital chief Henna Virkkunen said.
The app should be first adopted by seven EU countries that have been piloting it by the end of the year.
Once the system is in place, people connecting to an adult website from Europe could in practice be requested to verify their identity via that or a similar alternative.
An EU official speaking on condition of anonymity conceded the verification process might come across as "annoying" but said the harm to online surfing experience was worth it if it helped protect children.
Concerns that children and young teens could get around the checks using a VPN or asking an "older sister" for help, were well founded but missed the point, the official added.
The aim was to protect "kids" from "unintended exposure to inappropriate content" the official said, not "policing the people."
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Pressure to act at EU level has been rising since Australia's groundbreaking social media ban for under-16s.
Simeon de Brouwer of digital rights group EDRi said he doubted the app would be "practical", arguing that making platforms suitable for children was better than limiting access to them.
"The focus on age-gates itself takes attention away from the real issue: the platforms' lack of accountability for the harm they design and profit from," he told AFP. "If we address the root causes of harm, all this fuss for 'the most suitable and privacy-friendly exclusion tool' is moot."
The 27-country EU has some of the world's strictest rules regulating the digital space, with multiple probes ongoing into the impact on children of platforms including Instagram and TikTok.
Von der Leyen has advocated going further with an EU-wide minimum age limit, but first wants to hear from experts that are expected to deliver recommendations by summer.
"It is our duty to protect our children in the online world, just as we do in the offline world, and to do that effectively, we need a harmonised European approach," she said.
Additional reporting AFP
