Poland adopts age verification law, recommends EUDI Wallet approach

The Polish government has adopted a package of laws on Tuesday, which limits minors’ access to online pornography by requiring websites to introduce robust age verification systems.

The new regulation does not require providers to use specific technical solutions, but the government recommends that sites use the electronic age verification service available within the European Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet.

The move gives one of the clearest indications yet of how European governments may use the EUDI Wallet for age assurance. While the legislation remains technology-neutral, officials are explicitly pointing to the wallet’s age verification capabilities to balance child protection requirements with privacy and data minimization principles.

“It’s a mechanism that confirms age without revealing any personal data,” says Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs Dariusz Standerski.

The service provider doesn’t know who the user is and only receives their age. The wallet issuer, on the other hand, has no information about the services on which the age verification was used, he explains.

The country plans to launch secure, anonymous age verification by the end of 2026 through its national digital identity ecosystem. Poland has previously indicated that age verification functionality could be incorporated into its mObywatel (mCitizen) digital identity app, which already serves approximately 12 million users.​

Meanwhile, the European Commission has announced in April that its EU age verification app has reached technical readiness and will be available for public use soon.

The new package of laws adopted by the Polish Council of Ministers also includes provisions that speed up the removal of illegal content, such as fraud, identity theft, and child sexual exploitation material (CSAM), as well as ban children from using smartphones in primary schools.

The regulatory move comes after months of debate in Poland on child online safety and the harms of social media, mirroring similar discussions across Europe, the UK, the U.S. and Australia.

“Today, the average age of a child’s first contact with pornography in Poland is just under 11 years old. We cannot remain indifferent to this,” Minister of Digital Affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski wrote on X.

European policymakers are increasingly positioning digital identity wallets as a foundation for age assurance. Alongside the European Commission’s age verification app and the forthcoming EUDI Wallet rollout, Poland’s approach suggests that government-backed digital identity infrastructure may become a preferred mechanism for meeting age verification requirements while limiting the collection of personal data.

Article Topics

age verification  |  digital wallets  |  EU age verification  |  EU Digital Identity Wallet  |  mObywatel  |  Poland