In the era of underage alcohol and obacco use, retailers are often accused of lenient age enforcement and sales policies. Storeowners and employees can no longer rely on appearances to identify age, but must instead put their faith in a small piece of plastic with a picture, birth date, and address. But even the most vigilant retailers fall victim to counterfeit IDs, employee errors, undercover “sting” operations, and periods of customer overcrowding.
As detailed in the August 2005 issue of the Beverage Journal, biometric technology has proved a viable solution to age identification problems in Colorado liquor stores. What the August issue didn’t tell you is that biometrics has a place in Maryland and Washington D.C. for age identification, as well as for another cause for concern: cashing customer paychecks.
Biometrics & Age Identification
To best understand how biometrics relates to the beverage industry, let’s review some of the topics covered in August’s article: Biometrics: A High-Tech Answer to the Old Question; ‘Does He Look 21?’
When Bob Zenner’s liquor store, Terry’s Liquor, mistakenly sold alcohol to an undercover sting operative, the three-day shut-down penalty cost the store $35,000 in sales.
To safeguard against future infractions, Zenner enlisted the help of the Pay By Touch, a biometric fingerprint identification system. Pay By Touch helped Zenner and other liquor stores in Colorado install a system that identifies a person by their fingerprints.
To read the entire article (Adobe PDF Format) click here
