The pressure to impose age checks for social media platforms is growing in the EU, and regulators and providers are working to hash out what’s allowed. Member states are lobbying the European Commission to tighten guidelines by making age verification mandatory for social media. The commission says facial age estimation (FAE) is OK for social platforms, for now – but not for pornography. This, say age assurance vendors, is a mistake that risks flattening the market.
Social platforms ‘sufficiently high risk factor to require age verification’
Eleven countries have signed a letter, submitted to the European Commission and provided to MLex, advocating for mandatory age verification for social media to be included in the minor-protection guidelines of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA).
A report lists the signatories as Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Belgium’s Wallonia-Brussels Federation.
Several among these nations have explored age checks individually. Ireland published its Online Safety Code, which includes age assurance rules, in October 2024. France has begun cracking down on porn sites that do not comply with its regulations. Greece has launched a children’s digital wallet for online age verification.
The latter two countries, along with Spain, recently signed a discussion paper pushing for stronger online child protection rules for social networks – a document on which the larger group effort is built. That paper calls for “a regulatory framework setting out mandatory age verification obligations for social media platforms.”
“Crisis in our children’s mental health and welfare has reached a critical point, exacerbated by the uncontrolled expansion of social networking platforms that prioritize engagement over children’s safety,” the letter reads. “The well-documented presence of minors on social networks should be considered a sufficiently high risk factor to require age verification as the only method of age assurance.”
That means age assurance methods that perform biometric age estimation would not be considered adequate protection.
Under EU draft guidelines released in May, pornography, gambling and other “high-risk” platforms must implement strict age verification under the DSA – but, in keeping with a risk-based approach, allows the use of age estimation for social media, since it is considered to be lower risk than explicit adult content.
Dutch government says no on social media, but digital socializing is possible
The eleven signatories of the EC letter disagree – and so do the Dutch. In newly released guidelines, the government of the Netherlands has declared that kids under 15 should not have access to social media. However, it makes a distinction between social platforms like TikTok and Instagram, and “social interaction platforms” like WhatsApp and Signal, which it says are OK to use at age 13 and can help ease kids into digital literacy.
According to a press release, “the advice is to only let children start using chat apps in secondary school. Research shows that they can still be guided well by parents in those first years. A step-by-step build-up helps: first learn to communicate via chat, then get to know social media.”
“Social media can be fun and connecting, but its addictive effect also has a huge downside,” says State Secretary for Youth, Prevention and Sport Vincent Karremans. “Almost 13 percent of young people are at risk of problematic social media use. We want children to be able to grow up healthy and safe and support parents in this. That is why we are now introducing clear, unambiguous guidelines.”
Outcome of age check matters, not method: AVPA
Also not overly enthusiastic about the European Commission’s draft guidelines is the Age Verification Providers Association (AVPA) – but for the opposite reason. The trade group has submitted feedback to the commission, which calls out the commission’s overly prescriptive stance.
“While we support the overarching goal, we have strong concerns about the current approach and the implications for innovation, privacy, and inclusion,” says a post from AVPA on LinkedIn.
“The draft guidance risks narrowing the definition of effective age assurance by favouring specific methods, such as ID-based verification, while ignoring accessible, privacy-preserving alternatives such as facial age estimation. This approach confuses method with outcome and may shut down a growing, standards-based market for innovative age assurance technology.”
The argument is in line with AVPA’s standing concern that an EU-funded age verification app – which is in the works – threatens to strangle innovation in a burgeoning sector.
It also includes points that have come up again and again in the debate. The lack of a clear definition for key terms such as “highly effective”, “accuracy”, and “trusted ID.” Lack of clarity on so-called double-blind age verification tools – which, without proper ecosystem support, are “difficult to implement both commercially and with sufficient confidence in the accuracy of the age check.” Lack of clarity on what, exactly, is required for compliance, and where: “is a German KJM approved age-check based on facial estimation sufficient for an Italian AGCOM-regulated digital service?”
And a potential answer in international standards such as IEEE 2089.1 and ISO/IEC FDIS 27566-1 – which AVPA urges the commission to adopt.
Its overarching requests are entirely fair: please explain precisely what you mean, please don’t crush our businesses, and please consult the right people and resources in developing policy.
But its loudest message addresses a point of inflection that could come to limit the industry, if it doesn’t get the words right.
“Don’t prescribe methods,” AVPA says. “The draft guidance wrongly implies that age verification (e.g. using ID documents) is generally better than estimation (e.g. facial or hand movement analysis). What matters is how accurate and reliable the outcome is, not how it’s achieved.”
Yoti wants FAE allowed, even if it stands to win on document age verification
Yoti’s Robin Tombs has his own comment on the commission guidelines and on AVPA’s feedback, taking to social media to urge the commission to take another look at FAE and related age assurance methods, given the numbers.
“Across Europe and most other countries, when offered the choice of multiple age check methods, 70-90 percent of individuals choose FAE,” he says. Tombs gives the example of an age threshold for FAE set to 22. In that case, “over 99 percent of 13-17 year olds and over 98.5 percent of 17 year olds will not be able to access online porn. But at least for now, the EU is stating this age method is not good enough for many age use cases such as online porn.”
The alternative to facial age estimation – document-based age verification – means users of online pornography will, at some point, have to show someone their identity document, including a date of birth. Whether this means having a third party facilitate by generating a digital credential or reusable age verification token, or holding your driver’s license up to the camera to gain access, it is likely to make some users think twice about whether they really need to visit Wanx.com.
Tombs notes Yoti’s relative position of advantage. “There will be some who question why Yoti is complaining when some of these 100 million to 150 million European adults are likely to choose to create a free Yoti to prove their age with businesses across porn, vaping, gambling, dating and social media apps and websites.”
He says Yoti’s first principle is to “always act in the interest of our users.”
“There’s already lots of evidence many Europeans like to choose to prove age with their face, given it’s easy (and every face age estimated is instantly deleted),” Tombs says. “It seems a political misstep to push so many Europeans to have to use ID docs.”
The European Commission’s final guidance on age checks is set to be published in July.
Article Topics
age verification | AVPA | biometric age estimation | biometrics | Digital Services Act | Europe | face biometrics | social media | Yoti
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