Facial age estimation winning UK retailers’ support

In-person age checks are a fraught process, as anyone who has worked a front-of-house position in the retail or hospitality industry knows. But facial age estimation is providing a way around the contentiousness that sometimes leads to conflict, or compliance failures, attendees heard during webinar this week titled “Challenge Accepted: How Facial Age Estimation Will Revolutionise Challenge 25.”

Innovative Technology (ITL) Biometrics Product Manager Andrew O’Brien discussed how the problem of encouraging appropriate age checks by retail staff led to the development of the MyCheckr family of biometric facial age estimation devices.

Hemanshu Patel of The Federation of Independent Retailers (The Fed) noted that violence is carried out in response to age checks by both adults and minors. Staff at 47 percent of member stores have been subject to threats or abuse while carrying out age checks, according to a Fed survey.

Julian Taylor-Greene, who owns an independent Spar store that sells a variety of age restricted goods, talked about the benefits of his store’s MyCheckr implementation to the staff, underage customers, and the store itself. He also described the regular and semi-regular enforcement checks that are carried out in his store by various bodies to make sure staff are complying with regulations.

Repeat customers, who make up the majority of the store’s sales, know to bring their ID with them, and Taylor-Greene says he does believe the presence of MyCheckr has also deterred attempts by children to purchase age-restricted goods.

O’Brien says that in talking to stores and till operators, ITL found that human judgement is often a weak link in limiting the access of minors to age-restricted goods.

“Human judgement is influenced by a number of factors,” he says. “You don’t have to be asking for ID, but if you’re tired, your judgements will be affected. If you’re intimidated, you’re going to be affected. If you’re stressed, you’re going to be affected. If you’re under pressure, there’s a big queue, you’re going to be affected.”

People also tend to be more accurate when estimating how old people close to their own age are.

The judgement of operators is much less frequently questioned, and confrontations much less likely, with MyCheckr, O’Brien says. This conclusion is also backed up by the findings of the Home Office trial ITL participated in, he points out.

The issue is the same everywhere, he says. This is why ITL age estimation devices have also been deployed to over 300 stores in France, O’Brien says.

Buckinghamshire&Surrey Trading Standards Senior Officer Joanne Cook talked about how enforcement of the regulations works. Good policy, matched with due diligence, provides a defense shops and staff can use in cases of compliance failures. If one is not matched with the other, it will not provide protection from enforcement measures. Because the regulations are enforced by local authorities, the Primary Authority Scheme allows businesses to partner with a local authority, which then provide guidance that other regulators can follow when dealing with the business.

The advice also gives businesses confidence that the technology can be used in implementing their own age assurance policy.

A question from the audience touched on compliance with privacy regulations, and the lack of stored “special category data” by ITL’s devices, which makes them GDPR compliant.

Other attendees asked about the spread of age verification regulations in other countries and how easy ITL’s devices are to integrate with retailer’s existing systems.

The panelists concluded that facial age estimation has a significant role to pay in the future of retail.

Article Topics

age verification  |  biometric age estimation  |  biometrics  |  face biometrics  |  facial analysis  |  Innovative Technology  |  regulation  |  retail biometrics  |  UK age verification