Recital 53

Age assurance is an umbrella term for different age assurance methods, including both age verification and age estimation. In order to ensure that recipients of the service have reached the minimum age, or where the service concerns a child-friendly service, providers of online social networking services or video-sharing platform services in scope of the access delay should put in place appropriate age verification solutions at the moment of account creation. To facilitate compliance and promote a trusted, interoperable and privacy-preserving approach to age verification across the Union, providers should exclusively use EU age verification solutions that rely on EU proof of age attestation that certified as conforming with the requirements of the EU Age Verification Scheme EU Age Verification Scheme, which is established in Commission Recommendation (EU) 2026/1035 and that are listed in the EU list of EU Verification Solutions and the EU list of providers of EU proof of age attestations. The EU Age Verification Solution relied upon by the providers should be provided by an independent third party. The standards and criteria necessary for highly effective age verification are set out on the EU Age Verification Scheme, and any third-party certified as conforming to this scheme should be considered as providing valid proofs of age. To ensure the highest level of privacy, security, accuracy, reliability and non-intrusiveness, providers of proof of age attestations and age verification solutions no other age verification solutions shall be deemed compliant with the obligations in the Regulation to assess the age than the EU Age Verification Solutions and EU proof of age attestations. These EU Age Verification Solutions and EU Proof of age attestations should meet the requirements of the EU age verification scheme, such as the use of Zero Knowledge Proof to prevent identity tracking and online linkability. Once it is established that the providers of the proof of age attestations and age verification solution meet those requirements, and notified as such by the Member States, they should be listed in the EU list of proof of age attestations and the EU list of EU age verification solutions.