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Protecting minors with reliable age verification

Enforce age limits for social media, adult content, gambling and age-restricted products. With digital credentials, users can use a wallet to show they are old enough without unnecessarily sharing their name or full date of birth.

Discuss your age verification

Enough assurance, without unnecessary data

European CommissionOn the EU age verification solution (18+)Read the explanation (opens in a new tab)

“The age verification solution allows users to prove they are over 18 without sharing any other personal information.”

An age limit helps protect minors when you can check whether someone meets it. A date of birth entered by the user offers little assurance. A full identity document, however, reveals more data than an age check alone requires. Providers of online services and age-restricted products therefore face two responsibilities: enforcing age limits reliably and handling users’ personal data with care.

A wallet lets users store and share digital credentials in which an issuer has confirmed their age. Your service can digitally check a credential’s origin and validity. A suitable credential can confirm only that someone meets the required age threshold, without sharing their name or full date of birth. This lets you carry out age checks based on confirmed data, with less personal information held by the provider. Whether identification or additional checks are also needed depends on the use case.

The value of reliable age verification

Better protection for minors

A credential from an accepted issuer gives providers a verifiable basis for enforcing age limits. This helps prevent minors from accessing content, services or products for which they are too young.

Sharing less personal data

Users can demonstrate that they meet an age threshold without unnecessarily sharing other personal data. With a suitable credential, the provider receives only the age confirmation, without a name, full date of birth or identity document.

Making it easier to prove your age

Users can demonstrate their age through their wallet wherever their credential is accepted. This can reduce repeated identity document uploads and manual checks.

You decide which issuers and credentials to accept and which checks your service needs. What is possible depends on the available credentials, wallets and applicable rules. An age confirmation does not replace additional identification or other required checks.

Use cases for digital age verification

These examples show where digital credentials can help. What is possible depends on the available credentials, wallets, system integrations and the rules for your service and country.

Enforcing age limits on social media

Where an account, feature or specific content has an age limit, users can use a digital credential to demonstrate that they meet it. The platform can use this confirmation when deciding on access, without routinely requesting full identity details.

Checking access to adult content

A visitor can use a wallet to demonstrate that they meet the required age threshold. Where age confirmation is sufficient, the provider does not need to receive a name or full date of birth. The credential and verification method must meet the requirements for the content offered.

Registering a player for gambling

A player can share accepted age and identity data from a wallet. The operator verifies the data and links the result to the correct player account. Separate checks are still required, such as a Cruks check before participation in online gambling under a Dutch licence.

Checking age at purchase

Digital age confirmation can be used for alcohol or tobacco sales where this verification method is permitted. The seller also remains responsible for sales and delivery rules. In the Netherlands, online alcohol sales also require an age check on delivery; online tobacco sales are prohibited.

Connect age verification to your service

The Ver.iD platform lets you request age data and, where needed, identity data from supported wallets. The platform handles wallet exchange, technical verification and the associated key and certificate management. Your application processes the result and remains responsible for accounts, sessions and access decisions.

With our guidance, you work out the data request, accepted sources and integration. Your team or software provider connects your systems. Source owners and issuers remain responsible for their data and credentials; your organisation decides which credentials to accept and which additional checks are needed.

You decide which data to retain. Together, we work out suitable assistance or an alternative check for users without a usable credential, while keeping required checks in place. Limited data sharing does not automatically make your service anonymous: accounts or payments may still identify users.

Positively assessed by the KJM

Germany’s Commission for the Protection of Minors in the Media (KJM) has positively assessed Ver.iD by Subst.iD B.V. as an age verification module. The regulator published this on 4 November 2025.

The assessed concept uses a wallet in which the user has already been identified. The assessment applies to the submitted version, when implemented accordingly, for a closed user group for adults under Germany’s Interstate Treaty on the Protection of Minors in the Media (JMStV). Whether your configuration falls within that scope must be established separately.

Discuss age verification for your service

Tell us where you want to check age, for which users and in which countries. Together, we explore suitable wallet connections and checks and identify a useful first step.

Discuss your age verification