National governments can equally design their own apps, and the apps are meant to work together to allow for smooth age checks across the bloc.
But critics of age blocks say the technology to check people’s ages with proper privacy and data protections just isn’t ready — and even if it was, internet users would easily bypass it with things like virtual private networks (VPNs) that mask their location.
Blazy was part of a group of more than 400 privacy and security experts who sent an open letter to the Commission in March to impose a “moratorium on deployment plans until the scientific consensus settles on the benefits and harms that age-assurance technologies can bring, and on the technical feasibility of such a deployment.”
According to Markéta Gregorová, a member of the Czech Pirate party in the European Parliament and the lead lawmaker on a new cybersecurity bill, “this process is being rushed under political pressure.” Europe should take a much closer look at the app “to assess if all measures were taken for cybersecurity and privacy,” Gregorová said.
Birgit Sippel, a prominent German center-left lawmaker, called the app a “half-baked app solution that doesn’t live up to [the EU’s] own standards,” in a comment to POLITICO.
Piotr Müller, a Polish lawmaker for the European Conservatives and Reformists, said: “Brussels is once again pushing for a centralized, EU-wide technological tool. The hastily announced age verification app poses a massive risk to the privacy of citizens … We cannot agree to the step-by-step creation of a Chinese-style internet in Europe.”
Laurens Cerulus contributed reporting.