Yoti’s Age Tech Powers UK Self-Checkout Trial

The UK Home Office is moving forward with an age estimation trial that will enable self-service checkout for people purchasing alcohol. The trial will run through the end of May, and is kicking off at a pair of Asda locations in Pudsey and Stevenage and an Aldi store in London.

During the trial, shoppers who want to buy alcohol will be able to scan their purchases at self-service checkout terminals that have been outfitted with a camera and Yoti’s age estimation technology. The camera will scan each person’s face, and Yoti will try to determine whether or not the individual is over the age of 25.

Those who clear the required age threshold will be able to proceed with their purchase without showing any other form of identification. Those that could be younger than 25 can prove their age with Yoti’s digital identity app, or with the Post Office’s EasyID app, which debuted in September and also leverages Yoti technology. In both cases, shoppers will not need to interact with a store employee, and will instead enjoy a fully self-service checkout process.

Those who don’t want to subject themselves to the age scan will still have the option to go to the counter for a manual age check. The trial is limited to alcohol sales, so the Yoti age check cannot yet be used for the purchase of other age-restricted goods like knives and DVDs.

Yoti has claimed that its age estimation technology is 98.96 percent reliable. With regards to younger shoppers, it can guess someone’s age to within 2.35 years if that person is between the ages of 16-25. However, the company has been taking steps to improve the accuracy of its technology for younger users. Yoti’s age estimation tech has already been used to enable online alcohol sales in Australia.

Sources: NFCW, Leicester Mercury

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February 10, 2022 – by Eric Weiss