Businesses need to know who their customers are to meet regulatory compliance requirements. In some cases, they might also need to verify a customer’s age, for example, if they sell age-restricted products like alcohol or services like online gaming. An age verification system helps confirm that customers meet age requirements, keeping businesses compliant with regulations such as know your customer (KYC). These systems may use document checks, biometrics, or verified data records checks to confirm that a customer is the age they claim to be.
Key takeaways
- Age verification is an aspect of identity verification that confirms whether a user meets a minimum age requirement to access restricted services, products, or content.
- Methods range from simple self-declaration to document checks using age verification software.
- Sectors such as healthcare, finance, and government are required to verify age under legal or regulatory mandates.
- Challenges in instituting age verification include concerns about data privacy, inclusivity, and technological limitations.
What is age verification?
Age verification confirms whether someone meets the minimum age requirement to access restricted products, services, or content, as dictated by law, policies, or regulations.
It is a requirement across several sectors:
- In healthcare, minors need adult consent for treatment. Age can also affect medication dosage and treatment protocols.
- Certain government services, such as child healthcare programs or Medicare, are age-specific.
- For financial institutions, verification of age supports compliance with KYC and anti-money laundering (AML) laws. It also prevents minors from engaging in stock trading, taking out a loan, and other financial activities restricted to legal adults.
How does age verification work? Businesses can confirm the ages of their customers in several different ways, including identity document checks, record checks, and, recently, biometric estimations. Age verification is often part of a broader identity verification process that helps prevent fraud and supports compliance with government and industry regulations.
Age-gated content/services
Many types of content and services require age verification. Examples include:
- Gambling apps and lottery sites
- Social media platforms (e.g., age 13+ policies per the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA))
- Mature-rated video games and movies
- Credit cards and investment accounts
- Dating apps
- Medical and genetic testing
- Car rental services and hotel bookings
- Voting registration
- Driver’s license and passport applications
- Federal student aid applications
- Social Security and Medicare enrollment
Types of age certification
Age verification methods vary in effort and rigor. The method a business uses depends on how strict the regulations are, how much risk it’s managing, and how sensitive the service is. Some approaches are fast but easy to bypass; others require more effort but offer stronger proof.
Self-declaration
Age verification by self-declaration (usually simply submitting their age or date of birth) is a low-security way to verify users’ ages since it relies entirely on user honesty. Many social media platforms and websites for alcohol or other restricted substances use this method.
Document checks
Document checks are more secure, requiring users to submit documents proving their age, such as a photo or scan of an ID, birth certificate, or other official record.
Identity verification systems
Some organizations take the process a step further by making age verification software part of their identity and access management (IAM) systems. A digital identity verification system can check documents or personal identifying information (PII) that users supply against various trusted data sources and records. This method is common among online pharmacies, banking and fintech apps, and online notary platforms.
Biometric age estimation
Some companies now use facial recognition scans to estimate a user’s age as part of their age verification systems. Businesses often rely on third-party age verification services to deliver these services through dedicated apps or APIs.
Age verification vs. age gates
Whereas age verification uses official documents, trusted data sources, or third-party services to confirm a user’s age, age gates are simpler. They typically require users to confirm they are a minimum age or input their birth date before accessing content, often in a landing page or pop-up window.
On their own, age gates are easy to bypass. But when paired with age verification software, they can trigger real-time checks, such as scanning an ID or matching personal information against public records. This added verification layer helps confirm that the user is actually the age they claim to be, not just what they typed in.
How age verification technology works
Age verification software uses various technological methods to check and confirm users’ ages. Its strength lies in layered verification, which combines multiple authentication factors, making it exponentially harder to bypass than simple age gates.
Modern age verification systems may use a combination of:
- Document verification using AI-powered optical character recognition (OCR) to scan government-issued IDs, automatically extracting and validating data fields while checking for security features and tampering.
- Biometric matching, where users take selfies that are compared to their ID photos using facial recognition algorithms.
- Database cross-referencing against government records, consumer records, credit bureaus, and utility databases to confirm identity authenticity.
- Sophisticated fraud detection algorithms that can identify fake documents and synthetic identities in real-time.
Built-in workflow automation adapts to different age-related regulatory requirements, reducing friction while maintaining compliance and minimizing the need for manual review.
Some age verification services and platforms offer options that preserve privacy, such as age estimation without storing biometric data, to align with data protection laws.
Best practices for age verification
Adopting strong age verification best practices helps organizations comply with requirements, protect users, and reduce risk.
- Research relevant laws. Understanding and complying with regulations like the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and COPPA in the U.S. helps organizations avoid fines or other legal action while simultaneously promoting user trust.
- Incorporate data privacy and security throughout the process. Collecting the minimal necessary data, implementing end-to-end encryption, and ensuring secure data storage with automatic deletion policies helps protect personal information.
- Offer multiple verification methods. Providing different options for age verification, such as uploading documents or selfies, gives users the flexibility to choose a method that aligns with their abilities and devices.
- Use multi-layered authentication. Checking information against multiple sources helps prevent fraud.
- Optimize to reduce friction. User-friendly interfaces, mobile-friendly designs, and smart capture technology streamline the verification process.
- Engage in continuous monitoring. Auditing outcomes and staying up to date on tactics for detecting fraud helps keep age verification systems accurate and effective.
Challenges with age verification
Having an age verification system and policy in place can help a business stay compliant and prevent fraud. However, organizations can face challenges in making these systems accurate, effective, and secure.
Inclusivity
Inclusivity is another key challenge. Not everyone has a device or the documents needed to complete digital age checks. For example, some may lack access to a smartphone or stable internet. Others may face barriers due to disability, like low vision or cognitive challenges that make it hard to follow instructions, use cameras or on-screen keyboards, or complete CAPTCHA prompts.
Bias is also a concern. AI-driven systems can reflect and replicate biases in the data they’re trained on. For example, facial recognition algorithms can be less accurate on people with darker skin tones. Entrust designs with accessibility and fairness in mind, using inclusive data and flexible verification options to support more people reliably.
Technological limitations
Technological limitations exacerbate these issues. Many current systems struggle with accuracy, creating false positives and negatives. And age verification software may not be able to recognize or accept non-standard documents, such as ID or birth certificates from other countries. Entrust’s verification tools are built to handle real-world complexity, supporting hundreds of document types and fallback methods when automation isn’t enough.
The future of age verification
Around the world, governments are considering or instituting legislation that could drive greater adoption of age verification technology.
- In the EU, the Digital Services Act (DSA) imposes stricter age verification on online platforms and digital services.
- In the UK, the UK Online Safety Act regulates content shared and accessed online, including mandating platforms implement robust age verification processes.
- In the United States, lawmakers have introduced the App Store Accountability Act, which would require app platforms like Apple and Google to verify users’ ages.
- Texas passed a law requiring age verification for access to sites with adult content, which could lead other states to follow suit.
Advances in technology could also impact identity verification trends. For example:
- The rapid growth of AI is helping age verification software analyze facial features to confirm users' ages.
- Multimodal biometrics (such as using facial and voice recognition together) can support greater accuracy in age verification.
- Blockchain-based or decentralized digital ID technology could enable users to verify their age without revealing personal information.
Together, regulation and innovation are setting the stage for more secure, privacy-conscious age verification systems built for compliance and user trust.
Verification support with Entrust
Entrust’s identity verification solutions offer flexible, modular options for organizations looking to implement or strengthen age verification systems. With capabilities ranging from AI-powered document authentication to biometric and device-based verification, businesses can layer security measures based on compliance needs.
Take a self-guided tour of our identity verification suite to see how Entrust helps businesses verify age with precision, privacy, and ease. For more information on the future of identity verification and how the landscape is shifting, download our Guide to Digital Identity Verification.
FAQs
How does age verification work online?
Online age verification can involve different methods. Self-declaration asks users to enter their birth date, though this relies on the user’s honesty. Document verification scans items like government-issued IDs and birth certificates, validating the information against government databases and other records. And biometric verification uses facial recognition to compare photo IDs to selfies. Some organizations outsource age verification to third-party services.
Is age verification safe?
Age verification presents some risk to privacy since the collection of personal information creates potential targets for hackers and data breaches. No system is completely risk-free. But well-designed age verification systems can minimize it. These should include security measures and protocols that align with government and industry requirements, like encryption, minimal data collection, and automatic deletion. Transparent policies regarding data collection and storage can build trust and help organizations hold themselves accountable.
How to do device-based age verification
Device-based age verification implements restrictions at the individual device or operating system level rather than requiring individual user verification. These methods can apply restrictions to all users of one device. For example, device-based age verification on a laptop to prevent minors or company employees from accessing certain sites. However, this method may not work for shared devices, such as computers at a library.
