The Online Purchasing of Goods and Services (Age Verification) Bill 2007-08 was introduced under the Ten Minute Rule Bill procedure by Margaret Moran, the Labour MP for Luton South. Although granted a Second Reading on 16 May and ordered to be printed, it has little chance of becoming law. However, this is said to be the first time a politician in Europe has called for online age and identity verification to be put on the statute books and Moran’s proposals aim to ensure anyone selling age-restricted goods and services over the Internet has to take steps to verify if customers are old enough.
One recent investigation exposed how a loophole in the law allowed children as young as 14 to get their hands on pre-pay credit cards. These enabled them to sign up for bingo sites and purchase knives, alcohol and pornography. Many online retailers simply ask customers to confirm their age by ticking a box and take no other measures to verify whether or not the person meets the criterion. MP Moran’s Ten Minute Rule Bill would outlaw this practice and compel retailers to take positive steps to ensure compliance.
Moran said: “My Bill aims to ensure online retailers take their responsibilities more seriously. Children can now get hold of some very disturbing items, things they would never be able to buy if they walked into a shop. It has to stop. It is clear that currently there are inadequate checks put in place by a large number of online retailers and if they are going to continue to drag their heels over this issue then it is up to Parliament to ensure our children are better protected.”
John Carr, a director of Scottish company NetIDme (which launched the world’s first online ID card) estimates that, if Moran’s proposed Bill did come into force, thousands of online retailers would need to change their practices.
He said: “In the past it was a lot easier for retailers to verify the age of customers as the person was usually stood in front of them. If there was any doubt about the person’s age then they could simply ask for identification, and if there was still any doubt just decline to sell the goods or services. However, the growth of the Internet and e-commerce has meant that you can now buy the same goods and services online. Very few online retailers have procedures or software in place to prevent the sale of age-restricted goods to children. This clearly shows that self-regulation is not working and therefore Margaret Moran’s proposed Bill is much needed.”
Although the Bill itself is not likely to do more than raise awareness, the following extract from Hansard may show the way the wind is blowing. Whether the Bill would be totally effective, given some breaches of the current legislation that seem to flourish (see Lilian Edwards recent post on e-bay, for example) is questionable, but it must surely be possible for legislation of this kind to set the bar a little higher and require a degree more cunning of today’s youth. That must surely be a good thing even if all it does is increase their ingenuity.
For an interesting review of some aspects of contracts with minors at a distance, see Robin Bynoe’s article Minors, Mobiles and the Law and the response to it. Though written in 2004/2005, they cast some light on the legal problems inherent in such contracts and remain useful.
Online Purchasing of Goods and Services (Age Verification)
3.35 pm
Margaret Moran (
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make it a requirement for the providers of goods and services and the providers of specified facilities enabling the purchase of such goods and services to take reasonable steps, in certain circumstances, to establish the age of customers making such purchases remotely; and for connected purposes.
In simple terms, my Bill would require online retailers and those who facilitate the sale of goods and services online to abide by the laws of the land in respect of age-restricted goods and services.
In days of old, when knights were bold and I was young, and the internet had not been invented, retailers had a comparatively easy job when it came to the sale of age-restricted goods and services such as alcohol, tobacco, gambling, solvents and so on. If there was any doubt about a person’s age, they could ask for identification and, if necessary, decline to sell the goods or services. The consequences of getting it wrong could be dire. A bookie or a landlord could be fined, lose their licence or worse; a cinema or nightclub could be closed down.
The growth of the internet and e-commerce, however, has meant that the same goods and services can now be bought online, and we are increasingly a nation of online buyers. With that has come a loophole that urgently needs to be addressed—namely, that there are most often no checks online, thus enabling children to buy age-restricted goods. This is at a time when we are all rightly concerned about the increasing availability of knives and alcohol to under-age youngsters. The Bill would require online retailers and those who facilitate such purchases—for instance, via pre-payment cards—to take positive steps to ensure age compliance. We cannot have a wild west scenario whereby anything is sold to anyone and no one takes responsibility. Children can now get hold of some very disturbing items—things that they would never be able to buy if they walked into a shop. That has to stop.
It is clear that very few online retailers have procedures or software in place to prevent the sale of age-restricted goods to children. Sadly, self-regulation is not working. I believe that online retailers caught selling alcohol, knives or pornography to under-age children should face a hefty fine or even imprisonment if they fail to put in place procedures to check the age of their customers. No one is seeking to hold back the tide of e-commerce, even if we could, or to place more onerous requirements on online retailers, or to prevent people from using pre-payment cards, but an increasing number of cases have exposed the ease with which children under 18 can buy alcohol, watch pornographic films, or worse.
Only a small number of goods and services are subject to any kind of age restriction, but they are in sensitive areas where society and the law have said some limits need to be applied. They are there for a reason, but there is a real risk that the internet could make them redundant. Many online retailers simply ask customers to confirm their age by ticking a box and take no other measures to verify whether the person meets the age criteria. “Of course”, cry the online retailers, “retailing on the internet relies on systems that are very highly automated and work at very high speeds with little direct human intervention.” They are right to say that the life of the vendor is so much harder online nowadays because banks routinely provide legal minors, in some cases children as young as 11, with the sort of plastic cards—for example, Solo or Visa Electron cards—that can be used to make payments on the internet and are widely accepted on every kind of website. Many members of the public associate the logos of these cards with credit cards, and everybody thinks that credit cards are available only to legal adults, not least because contracts cannot be enforced against legal minors, other than for “necessities”, which very few online sales are.
These brands are becoming associated with a range of other financial products, particularly pre-paid, or stored value cards, which can be bought as gifts and given to people of any age, or even bought over the counter for cash. One company in particular sells cards that use these logos and it advertises them as being available for use by persons of any age. The cards are accepted anywhere the logos appear, which includes millions of websites. I understand that the financial services industry sees the development of these stored value cards as a major new market that will grow exponentially over the next few years. However, such cards can allow children to get to places on the internet or buy goods and services online that they would never be able to access in real life.
We all know that children like to push the boundaries and, indeed, one online company survey found that of 300 18 to 30-year-olds, 57 per cent. admitted lying about their age to gain access to, or buy, age-restricted goods before their 18th birthday. Nobody compels anyone to sell age-restricted goods or services over the internet; they choose to do so. Therefore, unless companies can be sure they are selling goods legally, they should stop selling them online altogether.
The evidence that children are obtaining age-restricted goods and services online is becoming compelling. For example, last summer The People newspaper worked with a 14-year-old called Zach. He got a pre-paid card at a local store; he paid cash and walked out the door with it. The card retailers say that their cards can be sold only to people over the age of 18, but Zach had no trouble getting his—there was no check whatsoever—and since there is no law that says it is illegal to sell the cards to persons under the age of 18, one is bound to wonder how carefully many retailers monitor it. Using the card, Zach was able to order porn videos from Amazon, and knives from Tesco that were delivered to his home where he signed for them personally. Oddbins delivered some vodka to his house, and apparently William Hill let him bet £10 on a football match. Some other children in
Asking people simply to tick a box to confirm that they are a certain age is not acceptable in the internet age. The Gambling Act 2006, which came into force last September, specifically requires online gambling companies to implement an age verification service that is in no way dependent on the method of payment being used. In relation to gambling, the House has said it is not acceptable simply to ask people to confirm their age. We require companies to verify that their customers are over 18, for themselves, separately. We did that specifically and solely to protect children.
There are technological solutions, and companies are providing online age and ID check solutions in order to screen minors One who contacted me is currently working with online gaming vendors. It says that it supports the introduction of an age verification mandate to online retailers selling age-restricted goods, and adds that
“the online gaming industry has already proved that they can enable a instant customer age verification during the online transaction without incurring significant additional costs and without harming the customers experience”.
What is illegal in the real world is illegal in the virtual world. The evidence is clear that the laws restricting access to a limited number of goods and services on the basis of age are being circumvented online. That is a risk to our children and the community as a whole. The Bill would enable us to get rid of this loophole and provide the protection to our children that we intended to be there for them.
I commend the Bill to the House.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Margaret Moran, Ms Sally Keeble, Kali Mountford, Judy Mallaber, Barbara Keeley, Fiona Mactaggart, Ian Stewart, Martin Salter, Lynda Waltho and Linda Gilroy.
Online purchasing of goods and services (age verification)
Margaret Moran accordingly presented a Bill to make it a requirement for the providers of goods and services and the providers of specified facilities enabling the purchase of such goods and services to take reasonable steps, in certain circumstances, to establish the age of customers making such purchases remotely; and for connected purposes. And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 16 May, and to be printed [Bill 57].
