If you have de-Googled your phone, the EU’s age verification rules will exclude you from using all apps for all services
In late June, the European Union launched a pilot project to test a prototype age verification app in five member states: Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, and Spain. The excuse? Protect children online. The app is built on the technical sp
In late June, the European Union launched a pilot project to test a prototype age verification app in five member states: Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, and Spain. The excuse? Protect children online.
The app is built on the technical specifications of the upcoming European Digital Identity Wallet and is designed to be open-source, user-friendly and secure. However, as Take Back Our Tech notes, it is less secure than other options. Additionally, age verification can only be made using Google-approved Android devices or on iPhones, effectively requiring a Google or Apple account.
What this means is: If you are in the European Union and have de-Googled your phone, you will not be able to verify your age.
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On Monday, Take Back Our Tech (“TBOT”) published a video with an accompanying article to raise the alarm about an age verification app that the European Commission is trialling in five European countries.
The Commission presents the app as a private solution to age verification. But there’s one catch: they recommend the app use Google attestation, meaning that it won’t work on alternative phones, TBOT warned.
The app will only work on Google phones because it enforces Google attestation, even though it’s less secure. Everyone in the EU may be forced to use Big Tech phones when using apps integrated with this age verification system.
In the video below, TBOT’s Hakeem Anwar explains more and shows what app developers think about the European Commission’s latest move in its Digital ID programme.
EU Breaks Its Own Law, Forcing Use of Google for Age Verification | Take Back Our Tech, 11 August 2025 (5 mins)
If you are unable to watch the video above on Rumble, you can watch it on Substack HERE or Odysee HERE.
EU Breaks Its Own Law, Forcing Use of Google for Age Verification
By Take Back Our Tech, 11 August 2025
Earlier this month, the European Commission rolled out a new app and framework for age verification. It’s intended to be used by other apps that require age verification checks.
The EU loves to present privacy as one of its principles. So their system is open-source and attempts to minimise data leakage.
Here’s how it works:
- EU member states can develop on top of this app to create their own age verification apps.
- They publish it to the app stores in their country.
- Other apps on the phone can request age checks.
The requesting party will receive a simple “yes” or “no” answer with little additional information, a design choice aligned with the EU’s design principles.
But there’s one problem. This app requires the Play Integrity API, which is a service run by Google to check whether a phone is running a Google-approved version of Android. It excludes alternative operating systems like GrapheneOS and other degoogled OS’.
The open-source app was published on GitHub, and developers quickly took note of this section in the README:
The point of note is the Google Play Integrity API, which the EU has indicated will be part of the app.
Originally released in May 2025, any app developer could choose to implement it into their app. When activated, your phone communicates with Google Play servers, which sends a response back about:
- whether the app is genuine,
- whether it’s installed from the Google Play store, and
- whether the phone is running a licensed Android OS (commercial partnership with Google).
Essentially, it’s a check to see if you’re in Google’s walled garden with a Google Account or one of their partners like Samsung.
If an app chooses to use this API, then de-Googled phone users cannot use it – whatsoever. Therefore, if it’s a requirement for age verification in the EU, then those apps will be unusable for anyone on de-Googled phones.
Daniel Micay, founder of GrapheneOS, also created an issue on the same project with lots of support.
Micay was quick to point out that the Android Hardware Attestation API would be more secure, while cutting out Google’s monopoly.
It’s a hardware-based API which doesn’t need to communicate to an external server. It checks:
- Authenticity/integrity of the hardware
- Authenticity of the operating system to ensure current security updates
- Authenticity of the app
The EU is ignoring a more secure option in favour of one that doesn’t even check if the phone is still receiving security updates.
They are enforcing Google’s monopoly while neglecting security.
Since Google’s Play Integrity API was released, many large companies have started to enforce the checks in their apps. The most common are banking, financial and government apps. De-Googled phone users have workarounds such as loading the service from their browser or from their computer.
Despite overwhelming support from hundreds of developers requesting to remove the Google Play Integrity API requirement, the EU representative developers brushed it off and said they only created a reference implementation and member states would be able to make their own choices.
Then a few weeks later, they deleted that portion of the README, replacing it with this:
As Micay points out, ironically, another EU regulation – the Digital Market Act (“DMA”) – forbids upholding a monopoly on a foreign technology provider. According to the DMA, this requirement would be illegal.
Conclusion
Developers around the world are in agreement. Get rid of the Google dependency. They reasoned, provided “better” digital ID solutions, pleaded and cajoled the project, asking other developers to reach out to their EU representatives.
If you know my show, then you know I think that’s not going to work. I reminded everyone on the thread that this is happening everywhere in the world. Software companies will abide by their investors and financial firms, who are headed by the very same people who attend the annual Davos and Bilderberg meetings.
I’m grateful to have watched Chapter 17 of Derrick Broze’s ‘The Pyramid of Power’, which was the perfect preface to researching this issue. [Note from The Exposé: You can watch the first 16 Chapters of ‘The Pyramid of Power’ on YouTube HERE and Odysee HERE, and find a list of chapters HERE.]
It doesn’t matter what country you’re in. It’s happening everywhere.
Everyone who is using, or wants to use a phone detached from Google in the EU is under threat of being cut off from basic services.
We need to start rebuilding the world’s tech services in a way that can’t be controlled or taken over. Agorism and voluntaryism is the way.
About the Author
Take Back Our Tech is a website aiming to educate the public about friendly technology and how to use it effectively. “Technology and its users (us) are under threat of being surveilled and controlled by malicious forces. 90%+ of the current population rely on abusive software services and companies to communicate, who then analyse, monetise, and sterilise our thoughts, words, and ideas,” the website warns. “Let’s use technology that doesn’t use us.”
You can follow the work they’re doing on Substack, Telegram, Odysee and other platforms as listed HERE.
Featured image adapted from ‘EU Tests Age Verification App as UK Privacy Concerns Grow’, ASO World, 31 July 2025
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