Digital Age Verification replacing Age Gates for better compliance

Age verification is one of the trending snd sensitive topics these days, especially in the business industry. With the technology advancing every passing day and availability of the internet and smart devices at almost every home is alarming for minors. According to a survey, 53% of the children in the US own smartphones by the age of 11 and 84% of teenagers having phones. 

Online Age Verification

The significant ratio of minors immersing themselves in advanced technological experience raises a critical challenge for businesses to incorporate adequate age checks for minor protection. The demand for secure age verification had spiked significantly in the past few years when organisations started shifting their operation online. With this paradigm shift, multiple incidents have been reported in the past, highlighting minors access to age-restricted products, services and content. 

One such accident took place a few years ago when a 16-year-old boy brutally stabbed schoolboy with the knife that he bought online from Amazon, taking his life. Taking into account such incidents, regulators are becoming stringent in preventing children online from accessing age-restricted products and sites. They are continuously finding new ways to deal with organisations failing to protect minors online.

Age verification regulations demanding better compliance

According to the CDC report, alcohol is the key factor behind the death of people under age 21. 

Governments in different countries are coming with age verification laws to protect children.

The U.S has passed the law for selling age-restricted products and services. The President approved the legislation revising the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act on December 20, 2019. It raised the minimum age from 18 to 21 years for the sale of tobacco products. According to Nicotine Vapour Products (NVP) Law of Scotland, it is prohibited to sell or use nicotine vapour products and tobacco under the age of 18. Moreover, it mandates businesses to check identity cards of the buyers who seem younger than 25.

Read more: Age verification laws and regulations for better compliance.

Age Gates – A Thing of Past

Concerning age verification laws organisations are implementing age gates on their website to prevent minors from accessing adult content or age-restricted goods. But are they efficient enough to restrict underage users from proceeding further? No, they are not anymore. The reason is age gates rely on the honesty of the user to enter their date of birth or check a box to verify their age. You never know if the users are honest or not since nothing more is there to authenticate the information provided by them.

Prove your Age Online with Shufti’s Age Verification Service

As per statistics, businesses can’t rely on the simple age checks. These days online businesses are trying to cope with “how to create age requirements on the website with credit card verification”. The answer is simple to implement sophisticated age checker that ensures not only the age but the identity of the individual as well to comply with age verification and KYC & AML Regulations.

Shufti offers an AI-powered age verification solution for businesses to verify the age of the user through government-issued identity documents – an ID card, driving license, and passport. All user have to do is enter the date of birth and display their ID card in front of a webcam or mobile camera to get their age verified. Shufti’s advanced solution automatically extracts the data from the ID document through OCR extraction and authenticates the fetched information and face of the user. This service can verify age within seconds, ensuring seamless customer experience.