Major supermarket chains will trial the use of cameras to estimate a customer’s age when they are buying alcohol.
Shoppers purchasing alcohol can look at a camera to verify their age before completing their purchase. If the system believes the customer is under 25, they will need to show ID to a member of staff.
The camera will attempt to guess the customer’s age using an algorithm trained on a database of anonymous faces.
Yoti, the firm providing the technology, stress the technology is not facial recognition and their system will not retain images of the faces it captures.
Robin Tombs, Yoti’s chief executive, said: “Waiting for age approval at the self-checkout is sometimes frustrating for shoppers.
"Our age-verification solutions are helping retailers like Asda meet the requirements of regulators worldwide and keep pace with consumer demands for fast and convenient services, while preserving people’s privacy."
The system has already been tested on more than 125,000 faces of people aged between 6 and 60. It was capable of guessing their age to within 2.2 years, rising to 1.5 among 16-20-year-olds.
Geri Hebberd, Senior Director of Retail Innovation at Asda, said: “We know how time pressed some of our customers are, so we always want to make things quicker and easier for them when they shop with us.
“We are excited to be the first retailer in the UK to test this new technology and are looking forward to seeing what our customers think of the trial. The use of this software will enable colleagues to focus on serving customers and make sure they have an excellent experience whilst in store.”
Robin Tombs, chief exec of Yoti said: “Our age verification solutions are helping retailers like Asda meet the requirements of regulators worldwide and keep pace with consumer demands for fast and convenient services, while preserving people’s privacy.”
