We have heard a law is coming in that will require us to screen our online customers to check their age. Is this going to be difficult and expensive to do?
Indeed, the snappily named Online Purchasing of Goods and Services (Age Verification) Bill is due for a third reading in parliament. The bill proposes a requirement for retailers to take reasonable steps to verify the age of customers making purchases online.
While it’s already illegal to sell age-restricted products such as alcohol, knives or 18-certificate DVDs to children, this legislation aims to put the onus on retailers to prove the age of online customers before allowing them to make a purchase.
Richard Law, chief executive at identity management specialist GB Group helps retailers to verify the identity of their customers, and says that the same checks can be easily applied to check customers’ ages.
He points out that a lot of the information required to verify a customer’s age, such as their name and address, needs to be entered anyway as part of the checkout process. Law says that checks to verify this information against databases can happen in real-time and should not need to disrupt the checkout process. In order for some transactions to be completed, he says: “In a small percentage of cases, the customer would need to provide a passport number or driver’s licence number.”
And Law adds that while it might take a while for the bill to become law, in some European countries such as Germany, it is already the case that online retailers must make proactive checks. So if you sell internationally you should check the legal situation in each country to which you sell.
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