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Verify your ID to protect the kids
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2026
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Privacy
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It was just announced that the targeted solution is a Zero Knowledge approach, where the website just receives a simple “not underage” without any additional information from a mini-wallet. This would be a solution that I could stand behind as it doesn’t use any 3rd party services for age verification. It’s akin to the COVID certificate.
Edit: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/04/age-verification-european-union-mini-id-wallet
Even with the Zero Knowledge approach, you will still run an app on a phone (what if I don't have one) that will make some call to the government's servers, which will most likely know what website you're trying to access. We're moving the data mining from some third party to the government, which can be wrongly used later if some idiot comes into power. If it's not making a call to a government's servers, I would be surprised, since you could imagine someone just bypassing this to always return "Over 18".
Even funnier (read "sad"), this initiative will probably rely on Google and Apple to keep it robust, and will likely have no availability on rooted phones or non-Google Play Services ones. It's premature at best to deploy this in a meaningfully safe way.
This doesn't make a call to government servers.
The app (or desktop application BTW, incl. Linux) reads your national ID's NFC tag, once. When you need to prove your age, the app locally computes a zkp that only tells the site "at least 18yo yes/no".
Note that every EU country has a form of national ID, and the digital capabilities of these IDs are already used for a bunch of stuff (e.g. taxes, bank account creation,...). This doesn't worsen the privacy situation for EU citizens, but instead ensures that no privacy-unfriendly solutions emerge.
There must be something that ensures the response is legitimate. Otherwise, if it's client-side and fully offline, I can just spoof the app to return the response "Yes, over 18". If it's not the government doing the verification, it's Google or Apple, which will give them access to all the "adult" websites you visit. Also, another reason for the EU to push for strict device attestation, without any DIY stuff (i.e., no more GrapheneOS, LineageOS, etc).
I couldn't find a desktop app on the EU's GitHub (another red flag, btw, using GitHub for this). All that seems to be available is code for the Android or iOS apps. Could you share it, if you can?