Eurochild renews its commitment to the euCONSENT Project by joining the Advisory Board for Phase II
Eurochild role will be to offer feedback on the project’s progress from a child rights perspective to promote age verification and assurance systems that protect the full spectrum of children’s rights online.
Phase I of euCONSENT was developed in 2021-2022 under a European Commission funded project to develop an EU-wide computer network for completing online age verification and securing parental consent when younger children wish to share personal data. The project also tackled the challenge of obtaining parental consent, where if a child proves to be under 13 – 16 years old (dependent on the law in the Member State), they also need their parent’s consent before they can agree to their personal data being processed. The result was a successful pilot of a one-stop shop Europe-wide online age verification network.
The project results proved that it is possible to re-use age checks completed with one age verification provider for a website to access other websites served by an alternative age verification provider, in a privacy-preserving manner. In a nutshell, the euCONSENT operates as a network connecting other providers together so they can share age verification mechanisms with each other when a user asks them to.
The ultimate goal is to protect children from harm on the web, particularly age-restricted goods, content, and services while promoting their rights to the opportunities the internet offers. These groundbreaking results contribute to creating a safer internet for children, by balancing their rights to participation, inclusion, privacy, and protection. It allows children to benefit freely and safely from the opportunities that arise from the digital environment while reducing the risks of being exposed to harm online.
Now, members of the consortium that delivered the initial project have come together to create a new non-profit organisation to bring the solution into live operation. In this phase II, euCONSENT aims to see the network being used in practice, allowing users of competing age assurance providers to navigate any website served by these providers without a new check. The focus will be on understanding and meeting the requirements of major platforms and their users, both adults and children, to deliver interoperable age assurance that meets emerging EU and UK legal requirements.
Eurochild has joined the Advisory Board in this new phase and renewed its commitment to promote safe ways of verifying the age of users online.
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