Ease of access to online services and products has become mainstream raising major concerns for parents regarding the protection of their children. As the world is moving towards digitization and traffic among smartphone users is rapidly increasing, each child is vulnerable to the threats of digital space. Whether they are playing online games or watching youtube videos, they are commonly using smartphones and tablets. In the digital space, no one knows who you are. Minors can easily access age-restricted gaming and streaming channels as they lack age verification protocols. Age verification checkboxes and date of birth details are not enough for verifying users’ age. Minors use fake information to access online dating, gambling, and alcohol platforms. That’s why it is compulsory for online merchants to incorporate robust age verification checks to restrict minors’ access and comply with the global regulatory requirements.
Table of Contents
What is Online Age Verification?
Age verification is a procedure used for protecting minors and audiences from accessing adult-oriented products and services that are not suitable for their age. Online merchants that sell age-limited products and services have higher responsibility of selling their products only to individuals that are above the legal age limit. For online e-commerce and businesses platforms, it is essential to know the age of their customers and online age verification offers a beneficial solution.
Online age verification solutions help businesses to deliver the right product to their clients. Age verification checks help in restricting minors from performing unapproved transactions that are afterward claimed as chargebacks by the parents. By employing age verification services, such activities can be reduced. While adults can access services designed for them and restrict minor’s access.
Online Age Verification And Manual Age Measures
With the emergence of adult-oriented products, verifying age has become an important measure. Tobacco and drug selling stores do not allow minors to access their services as it is against the law for them to purchase and consume such products. In line with the laws of the US Food and Drug Authority the minimal age limit for buying and selling drugs products is 18. The consumption of these products is limited to adults and it is illegal to sell them to individuals below 18. These regulations work perfectly for stores offline as age is easily verified in the live presence of the customer. However, when it comes to online drug stores, it becomes a major problem.
The businesses operating online lack identity and age verification checks. It becomes an alarming situation online merchants just require usernames and passwords for authorizing customers’ access to their platform. There is an extensive need to protect adolescents from engaging with these platforms as consumption of these products has a bad impact on their health. Fortunately, the online age verification methods have become more effective and robust with the development of intelligent solutions. Nowadays, verifying the age of customers has become easier with the occurrence of biometric technologies and intelligent solutions for ID verification. Moreover, secure age verification solutions are equipped with artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to accurately differentiate between a kid and an adult.
How Online Age Verification Is Performed?
Age verification solutions facilitate businesses for onboarding authentic users’ for login or transaction verification while protecting from fraudsters and preventing minors from becoming a victim of identity theft. Age verification consists of four steps which are provided below:
Filling Date Of Birth details
The customer fills in the information regarding his name and date of birth on the online form generated by the system.
Uploading ID Document
The customer submits an image of his ID documents that include his ID card, passport, or driving license for verification.
Scanning And Extracting ID Information
The online age verification solution collects the information that includes name and DOB from the ID document and carries out document authenticity checks.
Confirmation and Delivering Results
After the successful verification of the information and document originality, the age verification process is finished and the customers’ verification status is verified or declined according to the provided age limit.
Conclusion
To conclude, age verification is the absolute necessity for protecting the younger generation from the negative effects of age-restricted goods and services. It is the major responsibility of online businesses to prevent minors from accessing their services. Online age verification is a cost-efficient and secure solution for eCommerce, tobacco, alcohol, and online gaming industries to ensure minors’ protection. It helps in adhering to the requirements of global regulations.
