Scandit has launched “Age Verified Self-Checkout,” a solution that enables retailers to automate and verify age-restricted purchases at self-checkout to reduce payment delays, eliminate unnecessary staff intervention, and improve regulatory compliance.
Designed for retailers that sell products such as alcohol, tobacco, or medicines, the age-verification self-checkout system offers a fully autonomous checkout process without the need for additional hardware at the registers. With this launch Scandit tackles one of the main obstacles to self-checkout: the need for employees to manually intervene in the 9 billion age-restricted transactions that occur annually worldwide.
With this solution, 80% of age verifications are resolved automatically in seconds, eliminating the need for staff intervention, while the verification process is six times faster for the customer. These optimized verifications translate into a 5% increase in self-checkout transactions across a retailer’s entire self-checkout network, reducing queues and boosting sales, especially during peak hours.
Verify age in under 10 seconds
By turning the customer’s smartphone into a private, secure and instant tool to verify age, the solution allows shoppers to verify their age in less than 10 seconds without downloading any app, primarily through facial recognition technology or by scanning their ID as an alternative.
In addition to helping retailers avoid the cost and maintenance burden of hardware-based alternatives, the new solution enables them to improve operations in three key areas:
- Fraud prevention. Facial comparison technology detects identity fraud by minors that mere document-reading solutions cannot identify and that employees could overlook, including underage customers using someone else’s identification.
- Labor optimization. Automation frees employees from routine age checks and awkward situations, allowing them to focus on higher-value tasks.
- Revenue lift. The always-on solution keeps self-checkout lanes running, translating into higher sales.
“Retailers are under pressure to offer faster and more convenient self-checkout experiences, but age restrictions remain a persistent hurdle that is exacerbated as the number of self-checkout lanes grows,” says Christian Floerkemeier, CTO and cofounder of Scandit. “Currently, retailers are forced to choose between bearing the labor costs of manual checks or investing in their own hardware, neither of which scales efficiently. Our age-verified self-checkout eliminates this dilemma by automating compliance quickly, securely, and without hardware, reducing intervention and optimizing labor.”
Powered by Scandit Smart Data Capture with ‘visual AI,’ this solution marks Scandit’s first foray into biometrics and has been designed with privacy in mind. Thanks to 100% on-device processing, neither Scandit nor retailers transmit or store biometric or identification data. It also complies with key standards, including GDPR, CCPA, ISO/IEC 27566-1, ISO 27001 and UKAS Challenge 25 certification.
The age-verified self-checkout system is designed to be fast and intuitive, and is based on the use of “selfies” to verify most shoppers in a single step. When a shopper scans a restricted item at the self-checkout, that kiosk displays a QR code on screen. The shopper scans the code with their smartphone, opening a verification page in the browser. Then, the customer takes a quick selfie and the device’s visual AI instantly estimates their age. If the estimate exceeds the store’s threshold, the payment process continues automatically. If the estimate is below the threshold, the customer is asked to scan an identification document that is read by the device and compared with the selfie to detect underage individuals attempting to use someone else’s ID. The self-checkout then receives a single approve/deny signal.
The age-verified self-checkout system from Scandit is ideal for grocery, supermarket, gas station, and convenience store environments with high volumes of self-checkout, strong demand for age-restricted products, and limited in-store staff availability.
