As governments across the globe, from Australia to the UK, grapple with the complexities of regulating social media for minors, Momentum said that it is “proud to highlight a significant contribution to the European debate by our General Secretary, Mark Camilleri Gambin.”
In his capacity as Deputy Secretary General of the EDP, Camilleri Gambin has published a new technical paper titled “Protecting Children without the privacy nightmare of Digital IDs.” The proposal challenges the current trend of invasive identification systems and offers a pragmatic, privacy-preserving alternative.
The EDP and Momentum said that they are closely following the international push for online safety. However, Camilleri Gambin warned that current legislative proposals often rely on heavy-handed Digital IDs or intrusive age verification systems.
“Many of the solutions currently under discussion almost always involve digital IDs or intrusive age verification systems, with the risk of turning child protection into a surveillance nightmare,” Camilleri Gambin writes.
The paper outlines a solution that bypasses the need for uploading government documents or exposing personal data. Instead, it proposes utilising a signal directly from the device’s operating system.
How it works:
Parental configuration: Parents activate a setting on the device (“Is this device for a minor?”) The “Flag”: This generates a secure flag that cannot be bypassed by a factory reset. Binary data transfer: Apps and browsers query this flag via an API and receive only a binary answer: isMinor: true/false.
“I’m not talking about stamping every network request with a label,” clarified Camilleri Gambin. “But a simple API check on request, very similar to accessing geolocation data.”
This proposal aligns with the work of EDP Secretary General Sandro Gozi, advocating for a Europe that innovates while strictly protecting fundamental rights and the rule of law.
The paper noted that the technology for this solution already exists within closed ecosystems like Apple’s “Screen Time” and Google’s “Family Link.” The challenge, and the opportunity, lies in establishing open standards that allow these protections to be interoperable across all platforms and developers transparently.
Momentum and the EDP said that they believe this analysis offers a critical technical roadmap for the ongoing regulatory debate. By shifting the focus to device-level signals, Europe can achieve a safer digital environment for minors without sacrificing the privacy of its citizens.
The paper is available to view by clicking here [1].
Photo: Momentum