Privacy-friendly online age verification

There is a broad need for open source privacy-friendly age verification, now that countries around the world are starting to impose age limits for online platforms. Often it is left to providers to come up with a working solution. A privacy-friendly mechanism is badly needed, especially for smaller platforms (including self-hosted instances of decentralised social media in the fediverse) with limited own capacities.

This project will create a reusable library which will enable mobile apps to read and parse data from electronic passports (MRTDs) using the device’s NFC capability. This library will implement the necessary standards (ICAO 9303) and protocols to communicate with the passport chip, retrieve personal data, and ensure security measures are upheld. The library will automatically perform Basic Access Control (BAC) or Password Authenticated Connection Establishment (PACE) as needed to establish a secure channel with the chip. Users will be able to give a proof of age (without further exposing any private information) simply by holding their phone near a passport or ID card in the correct manner.

The project aims for interoperability with passports from a wide range of countries (EU, US, UK, etc.), accounting for different standards or optional features. Additionally, the project will extend the Yivi identity wallet app with functionality to read personal attributes (like name, date of birth, etc) from passports, via NFC, and issue them to the app.