Age verification in the adult industry is both a legal necessity and an ethical responsibility. Businesses that sell age-restricted products or services must adhere to certain law regulations to ensure that minors do not use their offerings and avoid penalties that will harm their business in the long run.
As regulations grow increasingly strict, businesses need to prioritize the protection of minors while adhering to compliance standards. However, achieving this requires a balance between compliance and a smooth user experience – a balance more important than ever.
Governments worldwide take active steps to address this pressing issue. For example, Australia has been exploring age verification mechanisms as part of its broader efforts to combat online harm to children, including proposed legislation to restrict underage access to explicit content. Similarly, Canada has also moved forward with legislation that would require adult websites to verify users’ ages. These moves reflect a growing global consensus that action must be taken to restrict underage access to explicit content online.
If the age verification process takes too long, users are likely to abandon the site and seek a smoother experience elsewhere. That’s why it’s essential to streamline the process – making it quick and easy while still meeting all legal requirements.
In this blog, we’ll dive into the topic of age verification in the adult industry, covering privacy concerns, why it matters, and how the process works. Let’s get started!
Main privacy concerns in the adult industry
In this quite recent game of age verification, companies have to face a dual challenge. First, protecting minors from using their offerings but also respecting adults’ desire for privacy. That’s how age verification became an important privacy concern. Here are some examples of the privacy concerns companies have to face
Data Storage
When age verification is required, users are often asked to upload some evidence of their personal information such as IDs or credit card details. Businesses often store this information which can lead to unauthorised access in case of data breaches.
Data Tracking
Many adult platforms track user behaviour such as browsing history or interaction with certain content. For example, tracking cookies can link to a user’s activity or even identity. This raises concerns about anonymity, which some users prioritize a lot.
Third-Party Access
Using third-party providers to verify age or process payments can raise concerns about how these external services handle and store sensitive data.
Transparency in Data Use
Users usually want to know how their data is stored, tracked, and shared. A lack of transparency about this issue creates uncertainty.
Data Sharing Across Borders
User data are often transferred in different countries when used by global platforms, raising concerns about compliance with regional privacy laws like GDPR in Europe or CCPA in the United States.
Addressing these concerns by using secure systems, transparent policies, and being compliant with privacy laws, is essential to build trust, maintain compliance, and eventually ensure the efficient operation of your business. But why is it important to conduct age verification checks? In the next section, we’ll talk about the importance of these checks and why companies need to adhere to the laws.
Why is it important to conduct age verification in the adult industry?
At first, age verification may appear to be a simple administrative task, perhaps even an unnecessary complication. However, when you take a moment to consider it, you’ll recognize its true importance. It’s not only a matter of compliance but also an ethical responsibility, with significant implications for your company if regulatory requirements are not met.
A study found that 66% of adolescents reported unwanted exposure to adult-oriented websites, while another study revealed that minors are engaging in online gambling activities. These findings support the opinion that the offerings of the adult industry can have negative consequences for minors. That’s why age verification checks exist and they are important to protect them from exposure to harmful content or legal activities that can negatively impact minors and harm their well-being.
For businesses, the stakes are equally high. Non-adherence to age verification can lead to severe financial penalties, sanctions, and even reputational damage. Non-compliance doesn’t just hurt the business financially but it can also ruin the customer trust which can have long-term consequences for the company’s sustainability.
But why all of a sudden there’s a fuss about this topic?
In the next section of this blog, we’ll explain more about what’s happening nowadays.
What is happening nowadays with age verification laws?
Nowadays, there’s a bit of a fuss around the age verification laws that are becoming stricter and stricter to ensure compliance across industries. The European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) mandates that huge online platforms implement effective age verification measures while emphasizing the protection of minors. The European Commission plans to introduce an EU Digital Wallet by 2026. This will help verify the user’s age when entering adult-content websites.
Additionally, some EU countries have already taken part in this burning issue by implementing stricter national laws to enforce age verification. For instance, France has developed an age-verification service that acts as an intermediary between users and adult websites, ensuring compliance with the DSA, while Germany requires photo ID checks, credit card verification, or third-party age verification apps to restrict access to minors.
Businesses in the adult industry have raised concerns about these regulations, especially when it comes to user privacy and data security. Stricter age verification processes evolve the collection of personal data that can lead to privacy breaches in case of mishandling. Moreover, there are worries about the potential impact on user experience, as more invasive verification methods might prevent legitimate adult users.
Having said that, some people think that these measures can trespass on individual privacy rights and freedom of expression.
What does the age verification process look like on adult websites?
Age verification processes aren’t a new concept. They’ve been always applied but they didn’t have the same gravity and importance as they have today. They were also very easy to undermine. How? Usually, an age verification process looks like this:
Step 1: User requests access to a restricted website.
Step 2: The system prompts the user to verify their age. This can happen by requesting their date of birth or by ticking a small box, stating “I confirm that I am over 18”.
This method of age verification is quite simple and doesn’t truly verify the user’s age, as individuals can easily lie by providing false information. That’s why KYC regulations are pushed more and more, making age verification processes more difficult.
Websites now require users to verify their age through various methods like uploading a government-issued ID, passport, or driver’s license. Another way is by using a valid credit card since these are usually issued to adults.
Additionally, apps that estimate age through facial recognition, digital identity services that securely confirm users’ age, and mobile phone verification are some other methods that make age verification more efficient than it used to be.
How can online age verification solutions help?
By leveraging online age verification solutions, you no longer need to worry about compliance with regulatory requirements. You can rest assured that your business follows all mandatory processes while protecting minors and upholding ethical standards.
But that’s not the only benefit you get. When deciding to use an age verification online solution, you protect your company from reputational damage that could harm its long-term sustainability.
With certain features like document scanning, facial recognition, and real-time validation, you stay on top of the competition regarding user experience while reducing friction and providing a secure and efficient way to strike a balance between legal and business demands.
How can Klippa help your business?
Is your business operating in the adult industry but you don’t have the resources and time to build an age verification system from scratch? That’s where Klippa comes in. With our age verification software, you can easily and securely verify users’ age. Our software enables selfie identity verification with a liveness check, providing real-time user feedback for a seamless customer experience and accurate verification.
With Klippa, the age verification process looks like this:
- Upload an Identity Document: Users upload a government-issued ID, such as a passport or driver’s license.
- Data Extraction: Klippa’s advanced OCR technology extracts key information for the age verification process, such as the date of birth.
- Liveness Detection: The solution verifies user identity with a selfie check, creating a 3D biometric map to prevent spoofing attempts.
- Real-Time Verification: Data is cross-checked and validated instantly to confirm the user’s age, ensuring compliance with privacy laws like GDPR.
Besides Age Verification, Klippa can also help you with all of your ID verification needs. Here are some key features of our identity document verification solution:
- ID document verification: Verify the authenticity of an individual’s identity documents, such as ID cards, passports, or driver’s licenses.
- Detect document fraud: Identify forged or counterfeit documents used for identity verification, enhancing security and trust.
- Liveness detection: Ensure that a live person, rather than a static image or video, is present during identity verification, preventing spoofing.
- Selfie verification: This method requires individuals to take a selfie for identity verification, often compared to a reference photo to confirm their identity.
- Data anonymization: Protect customer data from unauthorized access or exposure by concealing or encrypting sensitive information.
- NFC checks: NFC (Near Field Communication) checks use wireless technology to verify the authenticity of identity documents or devices, enhancing security and reducing the risk of fraud.
Klippa can help you streamline the age verification process across a vast range of regions, making it simple to verify users’ ages from over 150+ countries. Are you ready to provide a seamless user experience while staying compliant with privacy laws? Then contact us today for more information.
Conclusion
Age verification in the adult industry is not just a regulatory obligation. It’s a critical step in protecting minors, ensuring privacy, and maintaining trust with users. As regulations evolve and privacy concerns grow, businesses must adopt secure and efficient verification solutions to balance compliance with user experience. By leveraging advanced tools like Klippa’s KYC software, you can tackle these challenges efficiently, protect your business, and provide a seamless experience for your users.