Credit card fees cost the convenience-store industry $20 billion a year in 2022, Kyle McKeen, CEO of TruAge, said. And in the future, there could be more fees associated with checking IDs for age-restricted products.
“We have an opportunity to get out in front of that,” McKeen said at the 2023 NACS Show.
TruAge, the digital age-verification technology developed by the National Association of Convenience Stores and Conexxus, allows retailers to securely verify age-gated products like tobacco and alcohol, according to the companies.
A code is integrated directly into existing point-of-sale systems, so no new equipment is needed. The program is free, and will accept a customer’s driver’s license, TruAge app QR code or mobile driver’s license, McKeen said. This takes the “fake ID” out of the mix, he said, while also protecting consumer privacy. The only thing being conveyed are a consumer’s date of birth, state of issue, state ID number and expiration date.
“So there’s no marketable data, there’s no opportunity for a PII [personally identifiable information] breach at your retail location,” McKeen said. “It’s simply those four data points.”
TruAge can now integrate with point-of-sale (POS) systems from Verifone, Pinnacle Corp. and Minor Decliner—with Clover and Chexit coming soon, McKeen said.
“Where we need additional pressure and your help is with NCR and Gilbarco [Veeder-Root],” he said. “These systems need to also be able to process the TruAge transactions in the system.”
TruAge can also limit the volume of products people buy, which, for example, could prevent them from buying large quantities of e-cigarettes to resell.
James Hervey, director, product management, Americas Petroleum Solutions with Verifone, said TruAge is critical for the industry in terms of protecting its ability to sell age-restricted products.
“In the end, it’s just the right thing to do,” Hervey said on why Verifone partnered with TruAge. “Our industries rely on these products, and we can look down in the future and seeing more age-restricted products coming into the market. And I don’t want to see what happened with e-cigarettes repeated with other new industry products.”
David Tooley, vice president of Tooley Oil Co., which operates 18 company-owned c-store and a dealer network in California, is piloting the TruAge system.
“Any additional tools we can give our frontline employees out there to help make sure that we’re verifying ages properly, that’s something we were really interested in doing,” Tooley said.
He said the fear for them was also that if NACS hadn’t come up with a solution, California would’ve come up with another way to do age-verification.
TruAge could prove particularly useful in states, like California, that are transitioning to mobile driver’s licenses. Through a pilot program, people who enroll for the state’s new mobile driver’s license can at the same time also opt into TruAge. Doing so will provide users a TruAge code that can be used at select retailers to verify age, McKeen said.
Retailers in other states should take note, as digital licenses are spreading. McKeen said there are several other states that have introduced mobile driver’s license including Colorado, Maryland, Georgia, Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Utah, Missouri and more.