The internet’s biggest successes have typically been built on interoperable standards.
Email works because providers agree on common protocols. Web browsers can access the same websites because they share standards. More recently, passkeys have gained traction because they work across devices, operating systems, and services. In each case, the value comes from the ability of different systems to work together.
Age assurance, however, has largely evolved in the opposite direction. Different platforms and providers have developed their own approaches, creating a fragmented ecosystem where users often repeat verification processes and companies rebuild similar infrastructure across products and regions.
According to the OpenAge Initiative, the next phase of age assurance requires the same ingredient that enabled many of the internet’s foundational technologies to scale: interoperability.
The initiative positions AgeKey as a reusable, privacy-preserving credential that can function across platforms. Crucially, an AgeKey stores the outcome of an age check, not the user’s identity or documents. Users can verify their age once and then reuse that age signal across participating services without repeatedly exposing personal information or restarting the verification process.
“We’ve spent years seeing how fragmented age assurance has become,” said Kieran Donovan, CEO of k-ID. “Different regions, different methods, different expectations, but all of them solving the same underlying problem in isolation. OpenAge is about creating a shared layer so those solutions can actually work together instead of against each other.”
From verification to infrastructure
The OpenAge Initiative is not intended to replace existing identity providers or compliance systems. Instead, it is designed as a coordination layer, allowing different verification methods to interoperate under a shared set of rules.
In practice, that means multiple providers can issue compatible credentials that are recognized across participating platforms without requiring a centralized identity database. Verification becomes a reusable signal, reducing friction for users while helping platforms streamline compliance requirements.
Julian Corbett, co-founder of k-ID and Head of the independent OpenAge Initiative, said the project’s success depends on creating value for both users and businesses.
“Interoperability only works if it reduces friction for users and complexity for platforms at the same time,” Corbett said. “What we’re building is a neutral way for age signals to be recognized across systems so a verification in one place can be trusted in another, without recreating the entire process every time.”
For platforms, the potential benefit is a reduction in duplicated compliance work across regions and product surfaces. For users, it reduces repeated identity checks that can interrupt onboarding, purchasing, and access to digital experiences.
As regulatory frameworks continue to evolve across the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, and other markets, global platforms are being asked to navigate different compliance expectations for age assurance and identity verification. OpenAge’s premise is that interoperability can help reduce that complexity without requiring every jurisdiction or provider to adopt the same verification method.
Beyond compliance
While age assurance is the first use case, OpenAge’s ambitions could extend beyond compliance.
Many online interactions already require users to repeatedly prove eligibility, age, or other attributes across different services. Whether purchasing age-restricted products, accessing regulated experiences, completing certain payment flows, interacting with age-gated content, or participating in digital marketplaces, users are often asked to verify the same information multiple times.
According to k-ID, the infrastructure being developed for age assurance could eventually support a broader ecosystem of portable, privacy-preserving age and eligibility signals, without needing to share identity.
That could include experiences tied to digital commerce, payments, cosmetics and virtual goods, loyalty programs, and other services where platforms need confidence that a user meets certain requirements without collecting unnecessary personal information every time. In every case the system moves a verified attribute, not the user’s identity, and OpenAge keeps no central database of users.
The company argues that interoperability creates value beyond efficiency. By allowing trusted signals to move between services, platforms can focus on delivering experiences rather than repeatedly rebuilding verification infrastructure.
“If every platform builds its own version of age assurance, you don’t get safety at scale, you get friction at scale,” Donovan said. “Interoperability is what turns compliance from a series of isolated obligations into something closer to shared infrastructure. That is the shift that makes a more open internet possible.”
Industry support grows
The idea of reusable age credentials is gaining support across a growing ecosystem of technology companies and online safety organizations.
Participants in the OpenAge Initiative include age assurance and identity providers such as Persona, Socure, Incode, Veratad, SpruceID, and AgeVerif, alongside safety-focused organizations including the Family Online Safety Institute, WeProtect Global Alliance, SWGfL, and the Centre for Information Policy Leadership.
For supporters, the opportunity extends beyond improving age verification. It represents a chance to establish common infrastructure for how trust signals are created, shared, and recognized across the internet.
Building a more open internet
The broader vision behind OpenAge is that trust infrastructure should function more like the internet’s foundational standards. OpenAge’s proponents believe age and eligibility signals should be portable across participating services.
That vision reflects a larger trend across digital identity and trust systems. Rather than creating new silos, the next generation of internet infrastructure is increasingly focused on portability, interoperability, and user control.
In that context, OpenAge is making the case that trusted signals themselves should be able to move across the internet as easily as information does today.
“The internet became powerful because it was built on interoperable standards,” Donovan said. “We’re applying that same principle to age assurance and digital trust. If we can create infrastructure that allows systems to work together instead of operating in isolation, we can unlock a safer, more seamless, and more open internet for everyone.”