Whether you are a business that sells alcohol, tobacco or you have any age-exclusive content on your website, it is your responsibility to ensure that your products are not negatively affecting the minors. Sellers can only fulfill this responsibility if they have effective online age verification solutions in their policies.
This is the world of the internet. Everybody has access to the internet now. Individuals from all age groups are consuming the content available on the internet with easy access. Because of the availability of every type of content over the internet, it has become easy for individuals to access whatever they want. This also involves minors accessing the age-restricted content. According to a survey, 53% of the children in the US own smartphones by the age of 11, and 84% of teenagers have phones. Therefore, sophisticated age checkers are required to verify the age to comply with age verification and KYC/AML regulation.
Steps of Digital Age Verification Process
Following are the 4 steps of digital age verification solutions:
Entering Date of Birth
In the 1st step, the customer is required to enter his name and date of birth in the registration step.
Uploading the ID document
The customers are then directed to the process of uploading any government-issued ID document like ID cards, driving licenses, and passports.
Extracting information
After uploading the ID document, Optical Character Recognition software then extracts the data from the document and uploads it.
Verification check
After successfully identifying the originality of the document, the customers would be allowed or denied access to the content based on the age threshold.
Industrial use case of online age verification
Age-restricted industries need to be careful in their policies regarding the accessibility of their content to underage users. Sellers that sell age-restricted content or have adult-exclusive content on their website need to comply with the KYC/AML and age verification check-in their privacy policy. Along with their moral duty, the age-restricted industries are nationally liable to prevent the minor from accessing their content.
Traditional Digital Age Verification Checks
Methods of age verification can be categorized into two categories either by verifying the age of consumer accessing the age-restricted content is of legal age and the second method is to have parental control over the digital activities of the users. The parental control can be a safe option but it can be easily deceived therefore verification checks incorporated into the policies of the websites is an effective way.
Self Verification
The most common method of age verification is self-verification in which the consumer types his/her age manually. The website asks the individual to type the date of birth or to check the box if the individual is above a certain age.
This conventional type of verification was considered standard in the USA. Children’s Online Privacy Policy Act (COPPA) makes all businesses irrespective of their products and services to include it in their terms of privacy policies. Although this verification check is easy, it is considered insufficient. Minors can easily dodge this step, lie about their age to access the attractive features of their favorite websites.
This is a child’s play to check the box to confirm their age or to manually type the age. As the kids have become wise, wiser ways are required to keep them from doing any activity above their age. Kids of this age are smarter than ever.
Verification on Delivery
Several age-restricted businesses that deliver the goods and products rely on courier services for the age verification checks. While this method is accurate, relying on third-party services to verify the age is not a good idea.
Age Verification through ID Document and Biometric Verification
Considering the increased consumption of online content, the need for digital age verification has also multiplied to get the age of consumers verified. Protecting minors from any illegal activity or restricting them from seeing/using or consuming any age-restricted content is an ethical measure for responsible businesses. Therefore, the need for effective technology is greater than ever before.
This is the most effective way to verify the age of the individual performing any digital activity on age-restricted websites. In this process, the user is required to upload an ID document on-site provided by the software. The website then asks the user to take a selfie. The system then verifies the age of the user through an ID document.
Due to advanced technology, the process completes in seconds making sure the legal buyers of the services have the best experience. The sellers of the age-exclusive content should ensure the online age verification processes in order to have legitimate customers onboarded and to prevent their businesses from hefty fines.
Conclusion
Children nowadays are excessively using social media through mobile phones. They access and consume the content of their choice. This also includes content designed for individuals of a certain age. Age-restricted industries thus are required to comply with KYC regulations for the age identification process. These verification checks would stop minors from consuming content not made for them and would ultimately secure the vendor from paying heavy penalties.
