Google releases Longfellow-zk libraries for eIDAS age verification
Google's Longfellow-zk release supplies production ZKP code for age assurance tied directly to eIDAS 2026 requirements. The move bridges academic cryptography and regulatory identity infrastructure while exposing gaps in benchmarks and formal verification. Deployment outcomes will be measurable by the number of national EUDI wallets shipping the libraries before the regulatory deadline.
Google open sourced its Longfellow-zk libraries after a pilot with Sparkasse for German banking age checks. The release provides reusable cryptographic primitives that let developers prove attributes such as age greater than 18 while revealing no other identifiers. Code and documentation are available at github.com/google/longfellow-zk.
The libraries target Article 5a of Regulation (EU) 2024/1183, which requires privacy-preserving authentication in the European Digital Identity Wallet. Official eIDAS technical specifications list selective disclosure and unlinkability as mandatory features; Longfellow-zk implements these via optimized zk-SNARK circuits. No independent benchmark data against libsnark or circom appears in the repository at release.
Prior coverage omitted integration friction with existing national eID schemes and the absence of formal security proofs or side-channel analysis. Regulatory pressure from the Digital Services Act and UK Online Safety Act creates immediate demand for production-grade ZKP tooling that national wallets can adopt without custom cryptography teams.
Member-state pilots must demonstrate interoperability by mid-2026. Longfellow-zk reduces the engineering barrier but leaves open questions of circuit auditability and hardware acceleration that will determine actual wallet deployments.
EU Commission: Zero national EUDI wallets ship Longfellow-zk in production before Q3 2026.
Sources (3)
- [1]Primary Source(https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/safety-security/opening-up-zero-knowledge-proof-technology-to-promote-privacy-in-age-assurance/)
- [2]eIDAS Regulation (EU) 2024/1183(https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1183/oj)
- [3]Longfellow-zk repository(https://github.com/google/longfellow-zk)