Age Verification For E-Commerce: Ensuring Safe Online Shopping For Minors

E-commerce is growing at a very fast pace, and so is the number of fraudsters and minors illegally buying stuff from the Internet. These people use a lot of techniques to get into buyers’ important information and do foul deeds like compromising credit card credentials.

One of the major causes of these fraudulent acts is the absence of proper identity verification. The website is not aware of the authenticity of the basic information given by the prospective buyer that visits the website. Your e-commerce business is in trouble when you do not have the proper identity software installed.

In this digital age, protect your business by installing an identity or age verification system on your website that will authenticate the basic information you ask from potential customers.

What Is Online Age Verification?

An online age verification system makes sure that the customers or visitors of your e-commerce website are over the legal age limit. It also ensures that your age-oriented products are shown only to an appropriate audience. It also protects minors from products that are not yet suitable for them.

Who is it for?

Age verification should be mandatory for companies that offer age-restricted products and services. Companies need to protect their licenses by keeping underage users safe. Some of the businesses that have a high need for age verification include banks, loan companies, online casinos, sellers of age-restricted products, and dating services.

What’s involved?

Age verification online can be performed in a lot of different ways, and here are some of the components that are involved in the process.

• Government-issued ID: Some of these IDs are driver’s licenses or passports.
• Other forms of identification: Examples of these are birth certificates or social security card
• Credit card information

The usual steps of age verification that companies take are:

• The companies require an end-user to submit details like name and date of birth by providing a form.
• The companies request that the user submit documents for verification.
• The identity credentials are extracted using optical character recognition and the authenticity check of the document.
• After checking the authenticity of the documents, that is when age verification occurs. The user may be accepted or declined based on the data and documents provided.

Why Is The Age Verification System Important?

Websites with age-restricted products and/or services like e-cigarettes, CBD products, and the like should have a pop-up informing visitors that they are age-restricted. Age verification is important because it filters out the visitors to your website. When your visitor is smart enough to realize that the website is age-restricted, he or she will click off the page if she is under the age requirement.

Another reason why age verification is important is that it is required by law. If you want to keep your license and avoid legal penalties, you have to comply with the law. If you do not follow the proper age verification system, then imprisonment is the worst thing that can happen.

With how accessible and easy it is to buy things from the internet, minors can just lie about their ages and purchase the things they want to purchase. This is why age verification is very necessary because it keeps minors out of your store. If your company is clear enough about age restrictions, then there is no reason for them to visit the site at all.

Who Has The Identity Verification Solution?

There are numerous identity verification companies all over the internet, so you want to make sure that you are in the right hands. Age verification can be done through knowledge-based authentication, identity data, three-factor authentication biometrics, and, as we discussed, documents.

If you want to keep your user experience smooth for age-appropriate customers, you have to consider seeking out an identity verification solution that has a very flexible and secure age verification that orchestrates customer age checks and is a trusted age verification provider for brands worldwide. One that has business verification services that will protect you from the raging cases of fraud online.

What Does The CNIL Recommend About Online Age Verification?

The Commission Nationale Informatique et Libertés enforces data protection laws, and this is something that we can learn from to protect our users and our businesses. The organization analyzed the main types of age verification on the Internet. And here are some of their recommendations:

Facial Analysis

Facial analysis in online age verification is not used to identify the individual; it is intended to estimate the age of the person on camera. It prevents young people from accessing adult-only websites. However, to protect the users, this kind of age verification system must be certified and deployed by legit identity verification companies.

Analysis of Identity Documentation

The age verification of a company can be more legitimate if it is carried out by a third party that collects and analyzes identity documents that have been provided by the visitors to the website. Systems use a live detection test to capture and verify that the user is who they claim to be.

Use of Government-provided Tools for Identification

Businesses can also use public databases or authentication systems to prove one’s age for access to the business’ website. Again, this kind of system should have a third party deployed.

Use of Payment Card Validation

This kind of identity verification solution is already used by a lot of stakeholders to prevent minors from accessing sites not intended for them. This kind of system is based on verifying the validity of the card, not on a payment.

Preventing Users from Bypassing Age Verification

There are a lot of successful businesses that do not have a comprehensive age verification system on their websites. With this being said, it becomes easier for possible fraudsters and even visitors to figure out how to bypass this. This also leads to minors buying age-restricted things not intended for them, and this is alarming for the business license.

In fact, there has been a study about a lot of social media apps that do not have age verification processes in place, leading to exposure of their privacy, cyberbullying, and online grooming.

The solution to this is fairly simple: have a robust age verification mechanism that can ensure the safety of your users and your business.

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