DISINFO: EU new age verification app is designed for surveillance
SUMMARY
The EU’s newly unveiled age‑verification app is a surveillance tool disguised as a privacy‑respecting solution. Security researchers were reportedly able to bypass its protections in under two minutes. The app is hackable by design and is part of the EU’s three‑step plan – to present a privacy‑respecting but vulnerable app, let it get hacked, then remove privacy features under the guise of fixing it. EU bureaucrats needed an excuse to silently start turning their ‘privacy‑respecting’ age verification app into a surveillance mechanism over all Europeans.
RESPONSE
Conspiracy theory not backed by any evidence. While the EU’s age verification app has been met with some criticism for its alleged vulnerabilities to hacking and its focus on restrictions for users instead of platform responsibility, there is nothing indicating that the app has been designed as a surveillance tool. The ultimate goal of this disinformation story is to advance a recurring narrative about a dictatorial European Union.
To prevent exposure to harmful and illegal content, as well as grooming by online predators, the Commission is proposing an age verification app. It is user-friendly and can be set up using a passport or ID card, enabling users to prove their age when accessing online services. The app is completely anonymous, works on any device, and is fully open source, meaning partner countries around the world can also adopt it.
The app is a free and easy-to-use solution to enhance children’s online safety, which online platforms can easily rely on. Some EU countries are already planning to integrate the app into their national digital identity wallets, and the Commission President called on more EU countries and private sector to follow suit.
The claim against the app is one of several disinformation narratives spread by Pavel Durov.
Since Pavel Durov’s arrest in France in August 2024, he has become a prominent FIMI actor, frequently promoting disinformation narratives targeting European governments. Among the falsities he has spread are claims that the EU stole the Romanian election, that France asked Durov to silence European conservative voices in Telegram, that Emmanuel Macron could be involved in Charlie Kirk’s murder, or that Spain’s age restrictions on social media seek to censor critics, among many others, without producing evidences for any of them.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that the EU will use digital identity programme to create a totalitarian surveillance system, that the EU's new action plan against disinformation provides for strengthening surveillance of online platforms, that the digital euro is Davos and NATO’s last resort to control the EU, that the story of Pavel Durov shows there is no freedom of speech in the West, or that the EU intends to create a "Ministry of Truth" and institutionalise censorship.