National governments can similarly design their own apps, and the apps are intended to work together to allow smooth age checks across the group.
But critics of age blocking say the technology to check people’s age with appropriate privacy and data security is not ready yet – and even if it were, Internet users would easily bypass it with things like virtual private networks (VPNs) that mask their location.
Blazey was part of a group of more than 400 privacy and security experts who sent an open letter to the Commission in March calling for “a pause on deployment plans until there is a scientific consensus on the benefits and harms of age-assuring technologies and the technical feasibility of such deployment.”
“This process is being pushed forward under political pressure,” according to legislator Marketa Gregorova, a member of the Czech Pirate Party in the European Parliament and the lead author of the new cybersecurity bill. “Europe should monitor the app more closely to assess whether all measures for cybersecurity and privacy are in place,” Gregorova 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] Your standards,” in a comment to Politico.
Piotr Müller, a Polish lawmaker from the European Conservatives and Reformists, said: “Brussels is once again pushing for a centralized, EU-wide technological tool. A hastily announced age verification app is a major threat to citizens’ privacy… We cannot agree to the step-by-step creation of a Chinese-style Internet in Europe.”
Lawrence Cerulas contributed reporting.
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