Russia looks at biometric age checks for online sale of age-restricted goods

The Russian government will develop amendments to the national legislation to verify the age of buyers using biometrics for the online sale of age-restricted goods, according to recent statements of the state press-service and some local media reports.

Implementation of these plans is personally controlled by Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko, who is one of the main supporters of the use of the unified biometric system technology in the trade of age-restricted goods, including online sales of alcohol.

“Thanks to biometrics, age verification when making online purchases will be quick and convenient for a person,” Grigorenko’s office said. After the design of the amendments, the draft law will be sent to the government apparatus.

“The use of biometrics when purchasing goods in the 18+ category will become a reliable way to confirm age,” a representative of the Russian Center of Biometric Technologies has said. According to the center, identification will take place within the Unified Biometric System, so online stores will not have access to the buyer’s data, their photo or age, as happens when presenting a passport.

A spokesman of the Russian Center of Biometric Technologies comments:

“The seller will only have access to the fact of whether the buyer meets the established age limit or not. Everything that is transmitted during age verification is a set of numbers from which it is impossible to restore any information about the person, so the seller will not be able to find out the buyer’s personal data even if they wanted to. At the same time as the bill is being discussed, the architecture of the age verification service is being developed».

According to experts of the Russian Vedomosti business paper, this is just the beginning, and that following this first step, biometrics will be used in sales of other products that have a clear age limit for sale: products for adults and tobacco products, the analyst adds.

The President of the Russian Association of Internet Trade Companies (AKIT) Artem Sokolov supports the idea of ​​age control through biometrics. According to him, the biometric technology will allow setting up a system on the delivery of alcoholic drinks similar to China, where it “has already proven its effectiveness.” But there, as Sokolov explains, the courier comes to the buyer, takes a photo of him, and if the system returns in the feedback that the person is an adult, they give him the alcohol.

Sokolov has also said that AKIT, representatives of Russian business and the public support the development a regulatory framework for the sale of any categories of goods on the Internet that are permitted in traditional retail. According to him, in case of alcoholic drinks, the current situation on the market is such that de jure, the delivery of alcohol is prohibited, but de facto it exists and is actively developing, and only illegal sellers operate in this market.

Still some analysts believe that implementation of these plans may be blocked by a powerful lobby of Russian retail, which oppose such an idea, believing it could lead to the loss of a large share of its revenue.

Article Topics

age verification  |  biometrics  |  ecommerce  |  face biometrics  |  legislation  |  retail biometrics  |  Russia  |  Unified Biometrics System