Proving your age shouldn’t have to mean handing over more personal information than necessary.
As digital proof of age becomes an increasingly practical option for businesses and their customers, Kestronics is working with Yoti to help retailers and hospitality operators make accepting Yoti Digital ID simple.
The aim is straightforward: give customers another convenient and privacy-conscious way to prove their age, while helping businesses introduce digital ID acceptance in a way that works with their existing technology and day-to-day operations.
A Different Way to Prove Your Age
Traditional physical ID, such as a passport or driving licence, contains significantly more information than a business needs when carrying out an age check.
With Yoti Digital ID, customers can use their phone to share a digital proof of age, allowing them to demonstrate that they meet the required age threshold without having to present all of the personal information contained on a physical identity document.
For customers, that can mean a quicker and more private experience. For businesses, it provides another way to carry out age checks alongside the physical forms of identification they already accept.
Digital ID Is About Choice
Changes to the regulatory framework are helping create a route for approved digital identities to be accepted as proof of age for alcohol sales in England and Wales.
Importantly, this does not mean businesses are required to adopt Digital ID.
Businesses can choose to introduce digital proof of age alongside existing processes, giving customers more choice in how they demonstrate their age.
That distinction matters. Digital ID isn't about replacing every existing age-checking process overnight. It's about giving businesses and their customers an additional option that can make age verification more convenient and privacy-conscious.
What Could This Mean for the Customer Experience?
Think about the moments when customers are asked to prove their age: at a staffed till, self-checkout, bar, service counter or venue entrance.
Traditionally, that means finding and presenting a physical document and sharing all of the information displayed on it.
Customers can use their phone to present the required digital proof of age, helping to create a smoother experience while sharing only the information needed for the check.
It also means customers have another choice beyond carrying a passport or driving licence purely to prove that they are over a particular age.
Making Digital ID Work in the Real World
Accepting digital proof of age involves more than simply deciding to offer it.
Retailers and hospitality businesses need to consider how Digital ID will work with their existing technology, including point-of-sale and self-checkout environments, as well as how it fits into operational processes for frontline teams.
We're working with Yoti and technology providers to help businesses understand what accepting Yoti Digital ID could look like across their estate and what is required to introduce it effectively.
Every environment is different, so implementation will depend on a business's existing systems, hardware and operational requirements.
Our role is to help make that journey as straightforward as possible.
What About Businesses That Want to Get Started Now?
For venues looking for a way to check Yoti Digital ID today, Yoti offers its ID Checker solution, which enables businesses to validate a customer's digital proof of age.
For larger organisations, additional enterprise capabilities can support requirements such as reporting, user management and organisational controls.
The right approach will depend on where age checks take place, how frequently they're carried out and the technology already being used within the business.
Kestronics can help businesses assess those requirements and understand the most appropriate route forward.
Giving Customers Another Choice
Digital proof of age has the potential to make age checks simpler for customers and frontline teams while reducing the amount of personal information customers need to share.
But adopting it is a choice and businesses need an approach that works for their particular environment.
Through our partnership with Yoti, Kestronics can help retailers and hospitality operators understand what accepting Yoti Digital ID means for their business, identify what they need to put in place and integrate the technology into their existing operations.