AGE ESTIMATE: Asda’s automated age-verification system detects whether customers look younger than 25
Customers at two Asda supermarkets in Pudsey and Stevenage in the UK can now verify their age when purchasing age-restricted products such as beer, wine and spirits using facial age estimation technology.
To use the service, customers look at a camera installed in a self-checkout screen and the automated age verification solution then detects whether they look younger than 25 years old.
If they do, customers will then need to verify their age through the Yoti or Post Office EasyID app in line with the UK’s Challenge 25 requirements for age verification when purchasing alcohol and other age-restricted products.
The system uses AI technology developed by digital identity provider Yoti that it says “estimates the age of 16-25 year olds within 2.35 years accuracy” based only on their facial features and “has been found to be 98.96% reliable”.
The Asda trial will run until the end of May and is part of a Home Office initiative to test technologies that can assist age verification in the retail sale of alcohol.
An Aldi contactless store in Greenwich High Street in London also began trialling the facial age estimation system earlier this month.
The UK Post Office rolled out its EasyID app in September 2021.
Asda lets customers authorise age-restricted purchases with their face was written by Tom Phillips and published by NFCW.