Age Verification

[stuartn]

Hi,

We have been asked to add age verification checks to our site as we sell knives as part of our fishing tackle range. Has anyone had experience of integrating anything similar within actinic, or does anyone know of reliable systems which do this? I have had a search online and found a few possible solutions (currently waiting to hear from them) but just wondered if someone on here had any information as well.

Thanks.

Stuart.

[Darren B]

Can you use the userdefind fields under text area, you can select this to be compulsory. Use a Statement "CONFIRM YOU ARE 18 OVER"

[meden]

or perhaps alter the wording of the 'confirm you have read the t&cs' to include that the purchaser is over 18 (though this would be for all sales of course - may not suit your purposes)

[OllyBug]

I know this may seem a little daft but I haven't seen anything like this on other age restricted goods such as films, computer games etc as they expect that the banks have not issued a card to someone under 18. I think I am correct assuming that all debit and credit cards can only be given to someone over 18 with exception of a Solo card. Therefore, you could say that these good's can't be purchased with Solo and also that the goods have to be sent to the card holders address only. Apart from this, the posts above should suffice.

[Mike Hughes]

There is a problem in this area. There are calls being made for all sites to use a proper age verification system rather than just a warning statement and an 'enter your age here' box.

I haven't really looked at the age checking systems yet but a quick search did reveal that it's Margaret Moran who's introducing the age related purchases bill in Parliament and as she's stepping down at the next election it's unclear whether this will progress or not.

These systems all appear to be somewhat unrealistic anyway. All someone under age needs is access to their parents IDs such as passport or bills, etc as there's no way of checking who's entering the requested information.

I did check with my local trading standards a few years back and they were quite happy with a warning about the relevant law and requiring people to make a legal statement about their age.

Your best bet might be to to ask Trading Standards what their current advice is and stick with that.

Mike

[Darren B]

I haven't really looked at the age checking systems yet but a quick search did reveal that it's Margaret Moran who's introducing the age related purchases bill in Parliament and as she's stepping down at the next election it's unclear whether this will progress or not.

Mike you always manage to dig up amazing information, the fact she is stepping down and no one has stood up to take the battern is not every day knowledge - i impressed

[grantglendinnin]

Another probably-useless-suggestion:

You could use the Date function on the 'Prompts' product tab - ie. Confirm you are over 18 by selecting your Date of Birth.

What more can you do without drastically limiting your legit customers options to buy online...

[Duncan Rounding]

Not really on topic but I think it's a bit of a farce anyway just asking someone to tick a box if they are over 18 - what does that prove?

[Darren B]

Not really on topic but I think it's a bit of a farce anyway just asking someone to tick a box if they are over 18 - what does that prove?

what you mean people might not be telling the truth?

[stuartn]

Thats the problem though - we also run a site which sells sporting knives (http://www.knifebargains.co.uk) and that has a check box on there which says ' I accept the Terms and Conditions displayed below and I confirm that I am OVER the age of 18'

However, the trading standards in London got a 14 year old to legally obtain a Mastercard Pre-Paid card and attempt to buy a knife from around 36 knife sites in the UK. We were included in that sample. Unfortunately he just ticked the check box (which is technically lying but that doesn't matter) and the order was processed.

What they are saying now is that a checkbox like that does not suffice and you must have some sort of age verification system on there. There is a report on the BBC site here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8039580.stm

We have contacted the Trading Standards to ask them exactly which system they now want us to use and are waiting on their reply. We were under the impression that Credit Cards could only be used by over 18s but apparently that is now not the case either.

The one situation we can see being a problem however, is if a child has the same name as a parent. For example, if an under 18 called John Smith purchases a knife on their own pre-paid credit card, gives a false date of birth, and has a father also called John Smith, how could the electoral register search prevent this? I am also aware that the electoral register is not a mandatory register for residents of the UK to be on, and whilst it has the dates of birth for a subset of people on there it does not have the date of birth of all persons.

So at the moment they have not taken any action against us, but we are just trying to find out how we can do this properly.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

Hi Stuart,
Have you had a look at 192.com Business Services who offer an age verification service, although the website doesn't mention the cost. The page in the second link has a short case study of a company selling knives.

http://www.192business.com/complianc...agerestriction
http://www.192business.com/our-solut...rification/age

This webpage may be worth reading although related to the USA more then UK http://winemarketer.com/wineseo/elec...irect-shipping and mentions that "the cost of these services usually amounts to about $.50 per transaction"

[stuartn]

Thanks for that - I hadn't seen their one. The one's i'd been looking at were gb.co.uk, paypoint.co.uk, and netidme.net

I did call our payment provider (protx/sagepay) but they told me there is no way of being able to restrict at their end, and there is also no way to refuse Mastercard Pre-Paid cards.

[dallen]

I've had some experience with this and would suggest talking to netidme above all others (long story short - they were the only company even vaguely helpful in getting the ball rolling). There is a knife site already using their services, but it is quite discreet.

Customer's data is checked against a variety of databases (not just the electoral roll) and it's then up to you to follow up on any 'failed' ID checks.

It's a bit tricky to set up initially as you'll need to gather data in a specific way to ensure you get accurate ID check requests - if you let customers enter details willy-nilly you'll get fails everywhere and spend most of your day calling customers to get their correct details!

Tick boxes and entering dates of birth are not enough - Trading Standards are currently working with local councils to try and get things tightened up. After the reading in the House of Lords the bill was gently pushed to one side with the general feeling being that new laws need not be brought in for e-commerce when the existing laws for age restricted goods are perfectly adequate and just need enforcing for e-commerce. And that's what's happening. Expect a letter/phone call/visit from a local council or trading standards officers if you do sell age restricted goods online as they are placing test orders on a LOT of sites at the moment and have been for some months

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

Stuart,

Another seller of knives has today posted a thread about Age Verification which would be of interest, see link below:

Online Age Verification - Selling Age Restricted Products

[stuartn]

Thanks for that Darren - out of all the companies we contacted (there were around 5) netidme were the only ones to give me any sort of reply, and to be honest the response they gave looks like they would be a good company to integrate with.

Its also a relief to see that someone has already integrated it with Actinic!!!

Thanks again.