Tech company Privately partners OVA to offer vape stores new age verification AI app

Action group Our Vape Advocacy (OVA) has partnered with safety tech company Privately SA to offer its UK members the latter's AgeAI age estimation system, working together to create a bespoke best-in-class solution for OVA’s membership.

The pioneering AI app provides automated and highly accurate facial age estimation, removing guesswork from age checks and mitigating the risk of fines. AgeAI is 100% anonymous, with no images transmitted or stored, and GDPR (UK) certified.

“We want to proactively ensure that our members are doing their best to avoid selling to minors and Privately’s AgeAI is the ideal solution for our industry,” said James Van Aalst, of Our Vape Advocacy.

“We are delivering a bespoke version of AgeAI that is best in class and designed with vape retailers in mind. It is lightning-fast at the checkout, greatly reduces friction between staff and customers, and is incredibly easy to set up. AgeAI automates the ‘refusals register’, making monitoring store compliance easier over time.”

The 2024 Underage Vape Sales Report recently revealed that two retailers were caught every single day selling vapes to underage teens in 2023. Guilty retailers could see fines exceeding £1,500, while the upcoming Tobacco and Vapes Bill aims to tighten vape sales regulations further.

Privately’s FaceAssure technology, on which the AgeAI product is based, has passed the Challenge 25 certification of UK Accreditation Service, meaning it can identify 18–20-year-olds with 100% accuracy as being under 25.

Age AI has also been approved by Peterborough City Council, as part of the Primary Authority Register, has undergone rigorous testing, including EAL3 certification and UK GDPR compliance, and has been positively trialled in Europe and the US.

“The vape industry is a highly fragmented sector and under massive scrutiny right now, and there’s an urgent need to clamp down on underage sales,” said Deepak Tewari, chief executive of Privately SA. “OVA members will now be assured they have an automated, accurate and speedy solution that means store staff can avoid the confrontation that comes from requests for ID and turning people away.”

Privately is a safety tech startup whose child safety apps have protected more than 100,000 children in the UK and worldwide. Historically focused on online safety tech, such as the BBC's 'Own It' online child safety app, it has recently developed and deployed technology to automate age detection online/offline to protect children and give them age-appropriate experiences.

Privately said it has carried out almost one million age check transactions in retail environments in the past year.

“Automated age verification is the first step towards online safety and age-appropriate user experiences,” continued Tewari. “It is currently easy for minors to access adult content, gambling sites or buy restricted items like vapes, fireworks, alcohol and cigarettes. This can happen with just a few clicks online, and in physical retail stores, there is a constant friction created by ID checks and fake IDs. Automation is a highly effective way of addressing these issues, and our technology is suited to a wide range of use cases -both physical and online.”