Definitions

The terms used throughout this site carry the meanings given by the Commission Recommendation on the protection of minors online. They are reproduced verbatim below. In case of any discrepancy between this page and the text of the Recommendation, the Recommendation prevails.

Throughout the rest of this site, EUDI Regulation (Regulation (EU) No 910/2014, as amended) is used as the short form for the instrument cited in definitions (e), (h), (i) and (j) below.

For the purposes of this site the following definitions apply:

(a) Minor — a natural person under the age of 18.

(b) Online platform — a hosting service that, at the request of a recipient of the service, stores and disseminates information to the public, unless that activity is a minor and purely ancillary feature of another service or a minor functionality of a principal service and, for objective and technical reasons, cannot be used without that other service, and the integration of the feature or functionality into the other service is not a means to circumvent the applicability of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065.

(c) Age assurance — the set of methods used to determine, estimate or verify the age or age range of a natural person with varying levels of confidence, encompassing self-declaration, age estimation and age verification.

(d) Age verification — an age assurance method that relies on physical identifiers or on verified sources of identification, including government-issued credentials or notified electronic identification means, and that provides a high degree of certainty in determining whether a user meets a given age threshold.

(e) European Digital Identity Wallet — the electronic identification means as defined in Article 3(42) of Regulation (EU) No 910/2014.

(f) EU age verification blueprint — the reference technical specification for age verification developed by the Commission and published at the dedicated technical portal, comprising the technical architecture, protocols, interfaces and open-source reference implementation that together constitute the EU reference standard referred to in paragraph 44 of the Commission Communication C/2025/5519.

(g) EU age verification solution — any application or service implementing the EU age verification blueprint, whether provided by the Commission, by a Member State, or by any other public or private entity, and whether offered as a standalone application or integrated into a European Digital Identity Wallet, which enables users to prove that they meet a given age threshold, for the purposes of complying with Article 28 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065. For the purposes of this Recommendation, the term "EU age verification solution" is used in a broader sense than in Communication C/2025/5519, to refer to any implementation of the EU age verification blueprint, whether developed by the Commission or by other entities.

(h) Proof of age attestation — an electronic attestation of attributes, within the meaning of Article 3(44) of Regulation (EU) No 910/2014, confirming that its holder is above a given age threshold, without disclosing the holder's exact date of birth or any other personal data beyond what is strictly necessary for the provision of the service.

(i) Provider of proof of age attestations — a trust service provider within the meaning of Article 3(19) of Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 that issues proof of age attestations.