Meta description: It is becoming essential to have an effective age verification system to avoid minors from having access to the explicit content available on the internet.
As of June 2021, There are 4.66 billion people who are active users of the internet in the world according to Statista. Which makes around 60% of the total population of the world. The internet has become a core pillar in modern society, and we cannot imagine a world without the internet. With the high usage of the internet, our children are exposed to a digital library having an immense amount of content which can be good and bad for them at the same time.
Age verification is crucial here because there is a lot of age-restricted content available on the internet. The dangerous thing is that they are easily accessible because they do not have a proper age verification mechanism. And they can also fall prey to online scams or online identity thefts, which can lead to money loss to their parents. They can face mental health issues like depression and anxiety.
And children are very curious these days to explore the internet. And they can easily access age-restricted content like adult sites, games that require age verification. They can buy things that are not allowed to buy in the traditional world, like alcohol or drugs and the sites selling these types of things have a very weak age verification process like checkboxes saying that “I am 18+ or I agree”.And when they try to buy these types of things they fall prey to scammers and fraudsters.
Children nowadays are very enthusiastic about gaming. Around 20% of the gamers are below eighteen; they try to access or play games that require specific age checks.
But the main problem is that they do not have a proper age verification solution. Mostly these types of sites use traditional methods of verification like a checkbox saying that ” I am 18+ or I agree with the age restriction policies” which can easily be bypassed. The need of the hour is that we need advanced online age verification solutions like KYC.
What is Online AVS(age verification service)?
Online AVS is an advanced mechanism to prevent people from accessing content that is inappropriate for them. E-commerce merchants have the responsibility of selling their goods or services to those who meet their legal criteria. Online Age Verification helps sellers in selling their goods to the right customers because it is good to know your customers in online businesses.
How it Works
The process of Online Age Verification helps to onboard legitimate customers.
At first, the user enters the date of birth in the system then the user uploads a picture of an official document which can be an id card or driving license. Then the OCR(optical character recognition) system extracts data from the document and then the system compares the extracted data with the data entered by the user if it fulfills the requirements then the system declares the user valid.
Use Cases
E-gaming is a big industry with a worth of 776.4 million$ and around a 2.7billion gamers in the world. It becomes important to ensure that the right audience gets access to the right games because some games have adult themes and violence. AVS helps to identify and prevent under ages from accessing or playing these types of games.
Liquor and tobacco consumption are prohibited for minors in the public but there are a lot of e-stores selling these products and to prevent underage from buying these products AVS is important.
Children try to buy different products online and they can easily bypass checks to authenticate a transaction and they use their parents’ credit cards and sometimes they end up losing their credentials to a fraudster and fraudsters use the details to perform frauds. When parents came to know about the transaction they file a chargeback. It is important to use an age verification system in e-commerce to avoid children from buying products without the permission of their parents.
Cannabis production is legal in some countries because of its use in the medical industry. It is important and the responsibility of the vendors to sell the products to the right persons and they should verify the age of the buyer.
Conclusion
To conclude, age verification is essential to protect our young generation from age-restricted content and products because they can be very harmful to their future. Children can ruin themselves by accessing and using those things or products which are not legal or allowed to them. If you are running an e-store and you want to avoid difficulties like false chargebacks and credit card frauds you have to adopt an online age verification system to onboard legitimate customers. And if you are selling age-restricted products it is your responsibility to sell your products to only those who fulfill the legal criteria.