What is age verification?Age verification helps to protect young consumers from early access to age-restricted products

UK regulations now require online operators to conduct age verification before consumers are allowed to access or purchase age-restricted or ‘harmful’ content.

What is age verification?

Age verification verifies that an individual is the age they claim to be. This helps protect young people from early exposure to age-restricted products.

Traditionally, age verification has been used to ensure the legal purchase of products such as alcohol and cigarettes. However, as modern consumers across all demographics are now engaging with brands and content online, age verification processes are adapting to meet digital age verification legislation.

What are the UK age verification regulations?

The age verification regulations in the UK help to protect young consumers from early exposure to age-restricted products.

The legislation and codes that help to achieve this include:

• Offensive Weapons Act 2022
• Age Appropriate Design Code
• Online Safety Bill

These legislations and codes require online companies to operate age verification processes before consumers are allowed to make a purchase or subscribe to a service. This means that traditional age verification processes require immediate change.

What items are age-restricted in the UK?

Knives, fireworks, tobacco, alcohol, vape products, and adult content are all examples of age-restricted products available to purchase in the UK.

Typically, these products are limited by law to adults over 18 years of age, however, this may vary depending on the specific product, content, and legislation.

What industries and organisations need to verify age?

Gaming and gambling, dating and adult entertainment, and retail are among the industries and organisations in the UK that are required by law to carry out mandatory verification checks.

To meet legislation and regulations, these industries must verify customer ages and dates of birth using age verification and date of birth verification tools and solutions.

Age verification is important in gaming and gambling industries, to ensure the person is who they say they are, and to protect vulnerable players.

In retail, age and date of birth verification is used to verify that an individual is above the legal age limit to purchase age-restricted products, such as alcoholic drinks, tobacco, knives, and corrosive substances.

Any organisation that publishes adult content must take sufficient measures to check that an individual is not below the age threshold to access that content, typically through the verification of a customer’s age/date of birth. This protects both the customer and business risk whilst maintaining regulatory compliance.

Being able to verify age can help you to:

Types of age verification systems

Age verification processes establish the identity of an individual to confirm their eligibility to access or purchase age-restricted products.

How does electronic age verification work?

To verify a customer’s identity, electronic age verification processes cross-check the individual’s name and address with data sources such as those from Experian. This check confirms that the person meets the age requirements and ensures there is no risk, such as evidence that the individual is below the age threshold.

Age verification documents

This typically requires an authoritative source to confirm that the individual presenting the data is the person shown on the source.

A good example of this would be reviewing a reliable identity document, such as a passport or driving license, and comparing the image on the document to the person they claim to be.

Online age verification can be achieved by asking individuals to upload images of a driver’s license, passport, or other identity document to ensure they meet the age criteria and regulations around restrictions of sales.

Date of birth verification

When age range verification is not enough, for example, if a customer is to open a new bank account or apply for a credit card, date of birth verification provides precise and accurate information.

Some products and services are only available to people over a certain age limit. Date of birth verification checks are cross-referenced with credit bureau data and trusted data sources to ensure that an individual is as old as they say they are.

Age assurance vs age verification

The age verification process confirms a person’s age by establishing they are in the specific age range required.

Age assurance simply verifies that a person is over the minimum age limit and does not distinguish between a customer who is 18 years old and another who is older.

This is achieved by comparing the identification documents presented to an authoritative source such as Experian Credit Data.

Is age verification safe?

Experian age verification and date of birth verification tools and solutions use modern data security to protect data. This process relies on robust Experian bureau and data sources to ensure optimum safety and eliminate data risk.

How can I stop age verification from being bypassed?

Below are some of the most common ways in which users attempt to bypass age verification processes:

• Submitting fake or fabricated information: This is countered by using multiple data points in age verification and cross-checking the submitted details against public data, credit bureau data and other data sources to verify its accuracy. Experian age verification, for example, benefits from access to billions or regularly-updated data items and Experian’s own credit data bureau data.
• Abusing credit card verification: Age verification through credit card details can be circumvented by accessing credit cards belonging to adults or using prepaid cards. This is tackled by not relying on card details alone, using additional verification methods and data points to confirm the person’s identity and eligibility to access content.
• Using another person’s details or credentials: Typically the likelihood of this happening can be drastically reduced by using two-factor authentication methods to prevent unauthorised access to accounts, and by using robust identity verification methods.
• Manipulating weak age verification services: Some platforms are more easily manipulated than others, and may not identify when a minor is using false documentation or information. Counter this by using robust and trusted age verification solutions that have access to a wide range of data points to validate submissions.

Effective age verification solutions are reliable and accurate with their data and methods, and so limit these fraudulent identity attempts. They also permit legitimate customers access while maintaining a seamless and straightforward customer journey.