Google-Sparkasse partnership makes Google’s ZKP library open source

Google is embracing zero knowledge proofs (ZKP) for age verification, having this week announced a major partnership with Germany’s network of public savings banks, Sparkasse, that sees it open source its ZKP libraries.

A blog post from the company goes into more detail. “Open sourcing these powerful cryptographic tools will make it much easier for private and public sector developers to build their own privacy-enhancing applications and digital ID solutions, meeting an urgent need.”

The Silicon Valley giant says that sharing ZKP with the open source and cryptography communities reflects a commitment to “helping all parties in the ecosystem.”

These include web and app users, who “benefit from being inhabitants of a more private and secure digital ecosystem,” as well as relying parties with privacy needs, researchers looking for more “efficient and performant ZKP implementation,” and developers who can “freely use the ZKP codebase to build privacy-focused applications.”

Open sourcing anything is often framed as a benevolent act, but there is also the question of positioning in an age assurance sector that is currently evolving by the hour. European and UK regulatory bodies are poised to begin enforcing age assurance laws, issuing deep fines for noncompliance. The U.S. Supreme Court last week handed down its opinion on a major age assurance case, ruling that Texas’ law imposing age verification or age estimation requirements on porngraphy sites does not violate the First Amendment (or does so only incidentally).

The blog notes that “the European Union’s eIDAS Regulation set to take effect in 2026 encourages Member States to integrate privacy-enhancing technologies like ZKP into the European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI Wallet). With our commitment to making these ZKP tools openly available, Member States can integrate this into their future EUDI Wallets, accelerating their development.”

There will be many moving parts to the age check ecosystem as it coheres around regulation, some less tangible than others. Google’s participation in the recent Australian Age Assurance Technology Trial shows it has interest in playing a role. As governments develop age assurance apps with public money, and the emergent private sector bands together even as certain names come to dominate the leaderboard, Google putting its ZKP library into the world is a way to occupy a place in the ecosystem, and attach Google’s name to ZKPs, which are also the backbone of many smaller businesses’ models.

Thus lingers the question: can age verification and age estimation startups weather the one-two punch of government and Big Tech? Tune in tomorrow for more in the ongoing saga.

Article Topics

age verification  |  data privacy  |  Google  |  open source  |  zero knowledge  |  ZKP cryptography