EU parliament accepted a last minute amendment, mandating age verification for pornographic (whatever that is) content online, punishable with up to one year prison sentence.
This was rolled into a directive concerning CSAM. Because adults accessing porn need to be de-anonymised to avoid child exploitation?
It’s already questionable if it becomes a law, due to several security and privacy concerns. It will be a search of tecnical solutions which respect the EU privacy law, which isn’t so easy, wil say, it will not be in near dates until it is generally implrmented, depending also on each country. We’ll see. I asked Andi:
The European Commission is developing an age verification app, set to launch in July 2025, that will allow EU users to prove they are old enough to access age-restricted online content without revealing personal information[1][2]. The app, known as the “mini-wallet,” is built on the same technical specifications as the European Digital Identity Wallets planned for 2026[3].
Key features of the age verification solution include:
However, critics highlight potential accessibility issues, noting that marginalized groups like refugees, unhoused people, and those without government IDs may be excluded[1:3]. The Electronic Frontier Foundation also warns about privacy risks and the need for stronger regulations on which services can request age verification[1:4].
The initiative supports compliance with the Digital Services Act, which requires online platforms to implement robust age verification policies[2:1]. The Commission has already begun enforcement, launching investigations into four adult content websites in May 2025 over inadequate age verification measures[5].
EFF - Age Verification in the European Union: The Commission’s Age Verification App ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
European Commission - Call for tenders: Development, consultancy and support for an age verification solution ↩︎ ↩︎
European Commission - The EU approach to age verification ↩︎ ↩︎
EU Age Verification Solution ↩︎
PYMNTS - EU to Launch Age Verification App for Online Use in July ↩︎
This is misleading. It will keep your information private from the website you’re accessing (supposedly), but the EU authorities will know full well which websites you’re visiting and surveilling.
And of course, they will apply the non-compliance claims to absolutely anything they want to censor.
I know very well that it is known which pages I visit, when authorities pretend it.
I’m normally not a friend of AI, but despite of this I use Andisearch as my main search engine since almost 3 years, because with it, I don’t have even the need to access most of the pages, I can read these in the own reader mode in the search results and summarize the content, sandboxed and with random proxie. The search concepts don’t even appears in the browser history only that I searched with Andi, but not what, I can watch YT videos also direct in the search results. It’s one of the most private search engine which I know, and I know almost all also thanks to an user. Free, no limits, no logs, no ads, no cookies, anonymous, own independent LLM.