Thing is, the status quo is absolutely worse. My 13yo son likes making Roblox games. Suddenly, some months ago, Roblox made a change where you’re not allowed to share your games with friends unless you do “age verification”, apparently in some misguided bid to beat the pedos. In Roblox’ case, this means sharing your 3D likeness with some sketchy American business who pinky promises to delete said data after. I don’t want random American tech companies to have my kids’ biometric info like that, able to sell it to whoever asks. Nor my passport or anything like that.

I’d much prefer a government supplied app, that’s guaranteed to protect my privacy, and has no business incentive to sell my data, where I can see what data about me (or my son) is shared with Roblox or whichever sleazy business wants it.

Obviously this only makes sense if the government is less sleazy than the average American tech business, but for all its faults, I think that currently holds for the EU (and most of its member countries). There’s plenty precedent of EU governments doing privacy-conscious apps right (the Dutch covid tracking app comes to mind).

I hope they see reason and fix this here issue.

However there is ZERO talk about mobile platforms... No alternative solution like linux for the desktop, no money or care given to the few alternative that tentatively exist, and zero talk about forcing companies (at least for the ones shipping android phones) to open up their firmwares and allow users to install alternative OS if they want to sell in the EU.

So whilst the backend guys more or less got the memo about sovereignty, I think there is still a lot of educational work to do regarding end user devices and what kind of digital slavery hole we're digging ourselves in...

"EU age verification app to ban any Android system not licensed by Google" 27-jul-2025 https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyFromEU/comments/1mah79o/eu_age_v...

and

"EU age verification app not planning desktop support" 24-sep-2025 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45359074

What will you do when Apple/Google or the US Government effective immediately delete/block your app? The impact initially may be small but after a few years if widely used, you can break a country.

App and device verification based on Google Play Integrity API and Apple App Attestation

But I can't find that anywhere. Am I missing something?

The (actual) complaint of the thread appears to be resolved already (which would make sense given this is old news):

> In the README, the following is listed:

>> App and device verification based on Google Play Integrity API and Apple App Attestation

The README.md does not appear to feature such a section (nor any of the other files for that matter).

Separately, the title is editorializing, and falsely suggests there's some big bad EU app, even though the app that does exist is merely a reference implementation, not for end user usage. There's a reason the repository you're linking a discussion thread from only holds specs.

We have a definition at the beginning, for "Social media and other digital services (in short, social media+)":

“Within the scope of this report, the terms ‘social media+’ and ‘social media and other digital services’, are used to broadly define services that may be available to minors and contain age-inappropriate and/or risky features (for example, addictive and harmful features, among which infinite scroll, autoplay, recommendation algorithms and persistent notifications) and/or content. Social media and other digital services providers include online platforms serving as intermediaries of content from third parties, such as social media, as well as app stores. AI systems posing risks to minors’ safety and development, including AI companions, video games exposing children to harmful commercial practices or dangerous contacts, and video-sharing platforms enabling age-inappropriate access to minors are also included.”

So, let's see, services that may contain age-inappropriate and/or risky content, "online platforms serving as intermediaries of content from third parties".

How quickly can you come up with something that wouldn't fall in that definition?

It seems that anything that allows user-contributed content (such as plain old forums) or communication among users would be comprised in it.

And, yes, to be sure we explicitly include app stores (I guess including e.g. F-Droid, and what about software repositories?) and video games with intercommunication features.

What is this definition used for?

Recommendation 1 of chapter 3: “A harmonised EU-wide access restriction to *social media and other digital services*, including AI companions, for children under 13 is necessary.”

This is a report, not law, but it was commissioned by Ursula von der Leyen and “The report is intended to inform future actions to be proposed by the European Commission and EU Member States to reinforce child safety online.”

Are there any other Operating Systems than iOS, Android or Android flavors?

WebOS was nice but who is still using this? Symbian? Can you even use Social Media Apps with another phone OS?