On January 31, the Japan Franchise Association formulated an industry guideline, "Guidelines for Digital Age Verification of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco," indicating digital age verification methods when purchasing alcoholic beverages and tobacco.As a result, it will be possible to sell alcoholic beverages and cigarettes at self-checkouts at convenience stores, and save labor at stores.

In order to reduce the burden on member stores, convenience store companies are promoting labor-saving measures using technology such as the introduction of self-checkouts, but there were problems in realizing this.One of them is that when purchasing alcoholic beverages and tobacco, the purchaser "Are you over 20 years old?” was the age confirmation.

In this guideline, the required "identity confirmation level" and "personal authentication guarantee level" are set in three stages, and the form of age confirmation.Specifically, by using My Number cards, etc., it will be possible to sell alcohol and cigarettes at self-checkout counters at compatible convenience stores.

In the future, if My Number cards are installed on smartphones, it will be possible to confirm the date of birth by using the My Number card installed on smartphones and entering the PIN code.Personal authentication can also be a powerful age verification method by presenting biometric authentication when calling the JAN code or QR code in the smartphone application.

Please note that this guideline applies only to "alcoholic beverages and tobacco."Lotteries such as toto and adult magazines are not eligible.

In addition, referring to the usage situation, etc., we will proceed with consideration of easier-to-use methods, such as an age confirmation application that utilizes the My Number card function installed in smartphones.
Liquid, which handles biometric authentication services, also announced an age verification service for self-checkout on the 31st.