One out of seven online purchases by children comprises of age-restricted goods such as drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, cannabis, etc. And 442 children died in the USA due to drug overdose. That’s why selling age-restricted goods and services to minors is a crime. The regulatory authorities formulated age verification thresholds for the businesses selling restricted goods and services. When there is no face to face interaction with customers the risk increases. An online age verification solution ensures that this loophole is filled through real-time verification through ID card screening and face verification because just checking “I’m above 18 years of age” checkbox is no more productive enough in keeping minors off the age-restricted platforms.
Businesses that need to verify the age of their customers
Online businesses are growing with every passing day but this growth has given birth to many concerns that can only be tackled by using online age verification solutions. The businesses that are required to perform online age verification on their customers are mentioned as the reporting entities in the age verification regulations. Below is a list of online businesses that need to verify the age of their customers before onboarding them or selling them any goods.
- Online drug, alcohol, and prescribed drug sellers.
- Online gaming and gambling websites
- Online lottery sites
- Online cigarettes, vapes, and e-cigarette sellers.
Significance of age verification for businesses
It has several benefits for businesses that use this security threshold. Below are a few significant benefits of age verification.
Regulatory compliance
Age verification is the regulatory obligation of above-mentioned businesses. For example, the new gambling law in the UK requires the online gaming, gambling, and lottery websites to verify the name, date of birth and address of their customers at the minimum. This verification must be performed before onboarding the players on the gaming platform.
Performing age verification on customers helps reporting entities eliminate the risk of non-compliance penalties. The gambling firms in the UK paid £19.6m in penalties for being non-compliance with user security and AML regulations.
These regulations are imposed to protect underage users from addiction ad exploitation by professional gamers. On the other hand, these regulations are placed to identify criminals. The minimum customer due diligence practices ensures that a criminal using a stolen child identity would not be able to onboard the gaming platform.
Targeted audience
Performing age verification on the customers helps online businesses onboard a legitimate user base. It helps them practice competition on their gaming platform. Otherwise, professional players exploit the immature players and gain unfair gains.
Corporate social responsibility
It is the corporate social responsibility of the restricted goods sellers to apply practical age verification barriers on their websites to ensure the security of the minors. A business that shows adherence to corporate social responsibility attracts more market value, investment, and credibility. It helps the business grow and to retain that success.
Online age verification solution
An online age verification solution is a SAAS product offered by the identity verification industry. It is a software developed around artificial intelligence and it verifies the age of an individual through identity document verification (ID card, passport, driving license, etc.) and face verification.
An age verification solution is a feasible method to verify the identity and age of customers. It delivers highly accurate results in real-time. Also, it is cost-effective for online businesses, as developing an in-house solution requires hefty resources and time. On the other hand, manual verification is not efficient as it takes time and chances of false positives are high.
To wrap up, age verification is inevitable for businesses selling age-restricted goods. And performing online verification through a software helps them take some of their compliance burden off their shoulders. Ultimately regulatory compliance helps businesses onboard a secure clientele and gain retainable success.
A few organizations are uninformed of the hugeness that age check holds for their business. UK betting firms took care of £19.6m in punishments because of illegal tax avoidance and under-age betting led on their foundation.
Administrative specialists are presenting stringent Anti Money Laundering (AML) and age-confined offering guidelines to wipe out the danger of illegal tax avoidance and under-age betting habit.
For instance, the United Kingdom Gambling Commission revised the personality confirmation and KYC guidelines for internet betting destinations. The new guidelines require internet betting sites to confirm at any rate the name, address, and age of their players before onboarding them. The recently enrolled players ought to be confirmed also.
With exacting changes in the age-confirmation systems, the organizations need to pick up inside and out information about the check, its strategies, and its advantages. A few organizations need to fuse age-check programming in their frameworks because of some explanation however are uninformed of earnestness because of the absence of mindfulness.
What Is Age Verification?
Age confirmation is a procedure wherein the personality record of the client/client of business is screened to check if the age data gave is valid or not. This procedure can be performed physically or through a mechanized procedure. Manual check isn’t rehearsed normally in light of the fact that it has a high danger of human mistake and the procedure is strong.
To take care of this issue online age check is utilized broadly by numerous organizations. It helps in remote age confirmation of clients from any edge of the world.