Online age verification was relatively new to the scene of ecommerce several years ago when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) endorsed it as an acceptable tool for businesses to help prevent underage tobacco sales online. Specifically, the FDA called for a third-party age verification service that matches customer information against public records or other data sources to verify that buyers are above the legal minimum age to purchase tobacco products, which includes electronic cigarettes.
At AgeChecker.Net, for example, we collect customer checkout information to cross-reference against the world’s largest data sources and our own database of previously verified customers to make sure customers are who they say they are before a business fulfills an order. Underage buyers are declined through our process. If we can’t recognize a customer through database matching, we prompt them to submit a photo ID which must be approved by our team before they complete a purchase.
Vape retail came under the most scrutiny since it was most heavily tied to underage sales, with enforcement efforts ranging from fines and shutdowns by the FDA to lawsuits carried forth by individual cities, such as Chicago, and states, such as California, against businesses selling to minors. While many online retailers implemented proper age verification technology at the time, or even before, the FDA’s recommendations turned into hard and fast rules, others pushed it off—which presented a risk to those individual businesses, as well as a red flag to governing bodies that more needed to be done to curtail underage sales. The rules were weighted with heavier consequences.
However, it’s not just a single pronged effort that’s spurring the proliferation of age verification software. The federal minimum age to purchase tobacco products was raised from 18 to 21 last year, and FDA started rolling out additional guidelines such as marketing orders that give retailers a proper blueprint to set up their businesses for a sustainable future. Many states have regulations that overlay the minimum age requirement in regard to how products may be shipped, signed for, and more.
Currently, to legally market a new tobacco product in the U.S., a business must first receive a written order—in other words, approval—from the FDA. A business must demonstrate that their new tobacco product is “appropriate for the protection of the public health, which is determined with respect to the risks and benefits to the population as a whole, including users and non-users of tobacco products, and taking into account the increased or decreased likelihood that:
PMTA application approvals hinge on a variety of requirements, including the implementation of third-party age verification technology that fits FDA criteria. AgeChecker.Net provides its clients with certificates of use to show that they are actively verifying the age of their customers.
The FDA provides additional information about the PMTA application process here.
An age verification technology also provides logs that show our clients details about each customer that we verify. A business’s verification history, which may be formatted to meet specific client requests, is an audit-ready resource in the case of any lawsuits or investigations by governing bodies. We securely store details such as the customer’s name, address, date of birth, IP address, status (approved/declined), time and date, that customer’s history ordering from your company, so that you have records handy for internal or external use.
Lenders, merchant account solutions, and other service providers in the financial industry now require third-party age verification technology for a tobacco business to become eligible to sign up. An age verification app isn’t just a legal tool anymore. Businesses use it for due diligence, to help propel the industry, to get to know their customer base, to prevent chargebacks, fraud, and more.
Age verification software may have been met with a bit of reluctance by companies in the age-restricted industries, such as tobacco and vape, in its earliest years. Will customers be willing to go through the process? Will it hurt sales? Valid concerns delayed widespread adoption. Many businesses led the way in its implementation, causing other businesses to follow suit. Now, widespread use across multiple industries including alcohol, online gaming, surveys, has made age verification software an indispensable tool for a range of business types. It’s a PMTA resource and a widely-accepted marker that your business is doing its part to prevent underage sales. Customers are used to the process, and AgeChecker.Net houses a constantly updated database of previously verified customers so that they may complete age verification instantly on any website using AgeChecker.Net. The seamless age verification process for both business and consumer has made online age verification—once a novelty—a beacon helping spur the tobacco/vape industry, and others, into a more sustainable future.
