For many industries, such as cannabis, tobacco, and beer/wine/spirits, making sure that registrants are “of age” in order to lawfully participate in an activation is a matter of following the rules, and as we all know, breaking the rules (intentional or not) comes with consequences.

Surprisingly, the enforcement of local age rules is often handled the manual way, meaning Driver’s Licenses or State IDs are checked by staff operating a display, and registrants are allowed to proceed if criteria are met.

This approach can be risky because age rules vary by region, state, and even county in some instances – it is all too easy to make an innocent mistake and allow someone who is underage to pass through the display.

The consequences of even the most innocent mistakes are rarely fun: fines, legal battles, negative publicity, and all-around headaches that most likely could have been prevented.

Several of eshots’ clients have implemented our automated age-gate logic with their activation data capture, and they have found it to be helpful in a number of ways:

·     Being able to dynamically calculate age using Driver’s License, Military or State ID scanning technology is a more
      secure way to ensure the birthdate is being verified and captured as the correct age
·     There’s no need to memorize local regulations; rules for all 50 states are programmed into the survey, so the system
      knows if it should accept or decline a registrant
·     Audits by the FDA and other regulatory agencies are no longer nerve wracking because consumer records are easily
      recalled, and the enforcement of age regulations are by the book because technology doesn’t forget or mistake the
      rules
·     Display staff no longer have to awkwardly decline participation of underage attendees

Automating the age verification process has benefits all around; it is a great way to nearly eliminate any compliance snafus, and it also creates a better activation experience.

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