New age-restriction online retailing law urgently needed

Six out of ten people have used fake ID to lie about their age, according to research commissioned by age & ID check specialist 192.com Business Services.

The age and ID check specialists engaged the 1871 Research Group to survey 300 respondents – of which 57.7 percent admitted to lying about their age using a fake ID to gain access to goods and services restricted to the over 18’s.

Back bench Labour MP Margaret Moran has introduced the “Online Purchasing of Goods and Services (Age Verification)” private members bill which is due to get its second reading in the House of Commons this Friday. The Bill calls for online retailers to take reasonable steps to establish the age of its customers when selling adult goods and services.

Most websites currently only ask customers to tick a box to say that they are 18 years and over but current opinion is that this is not good enough to deter underage people from buying adult goods and services.

Online retailers have been reluctant in the past to admit that there is a problem and are likely to oppose Friday’s bill claiming that age verification is too difficult and costly to implement.

The online gambling industry has already taken strong measures to ensure that they age verify their customers and if online gaming sites can do it so can online retailers.  

Clive Hawkswood, Chief Executive from the Remote Gambling Association says, “The online gambling industry has implemented robust customer age verification systems with help from specialist age and ID check vendors such as 192business.com”.

David Pope, director at 192business.com says “The reaction that it’s not possible to verify customer age for online transactions is just wrong. The technology now exists to check customer age using a variety of age and ID check tools.  If retailers are capable of embracing the internet as a sales channel then they are equally capable of applying technologies to meet their basic responsibilities of not selling adult goods and services to children.