Verifying your age in a privacy preserving manner
The article discusses the challenge of verifying a user's age online without compromising personal privacy, proposing the use of Selective Disclosure JWT (SD-JWT) as a technical solution. SD-JWT allows users to prove they meet age requirements by disclosing only specific verified claims, without revealing unnecessary personal information. The system involves three parties: the user (holder), the issuer (such as a government), and the verifier (such as a website), ensuring trust through cryptographic verification while minimizing data exposure.
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Verifying your age in a privacy preserving manner « Posting on the internet freightens me Posted on 27 Apr 2026 Tagged with: [ sd-jwt ] [ privacy ] There is a lot going on in the world regarding age verification. Why does every website or operating system (and possibly later: smart appliances like your fridge??) need to know your age? While I don’t agree with a generic “think of the children” excuse, I do understand that there are certain sites you want to restrict for younger ages, like adult and gambling sites. But are we really willing to scan our ID cards and post them to those sites? Or, possibly worse, have a provider with a centralized database containing all these ID cards? Privacy AND security hell. So, let’s not talk about the political or legal side of things.
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