The European Commission is stepping up age verification efforts online, aiming to crack down on platforms like Pornhub and Snapchat. Under new laws, these sites must prove users are adults before allowing access—no more just clicking a button.

Enter the mini-wallet: a digital app that lets you verify your age once then proves it whenever needed, without sharing personal details. It's all about selective disclosure, ensuring privacy while keeping kids out of adult content.

The Commission hopes this will pave the way for future EU Digital Identity Wallets, offering a one-stop solution for managing personal data across various platforms and services. But skepticism abounds; while France and Denmark are leading the charge, Greece, Spain, and Italy seem slow to warm up to it.

Meanwhile, competing systems like Yoti and Persona offer alternatives, though they come with their own privacy concerns. The US model of mass data collection could be a slippery slope, so Europe is pushing for an open-source approach that protects individual rights.