Age Verification with Face Recognition for Digital Services
How to use face recognition age estimation for age-restricted digital services — alcohol, gambling, content gating, and regulatory compliance.
The Age Verification Challenge
Age-restricted services — alcohol delivery, online gambling, adult content, tobacco sales — need reliable age verification. Traditional methods (entering a birth date, uploading an ID) are easily bypassed. Face recognition offers a more reliable alternative.
How Face-Based Age Verification Works
ARSA's face analytics API estimates a person's age from a single photo. The process is simple:
import requestsresponse = requests.post(
"https://faceapi.arsa.technology/api/v1/face_analytics",
headers={"x-key-secret": "YOUR_API_KEY"},
files={"face_image": open("selfie.jpg", "rb")}
)
result = response.json()
estimated_age = result["faces"][0]["age"]
is_real = result["faces"][0]["passive_liveness"]["is_real_face"]
if estimated_age >= 21 and is_real:
print("Age verified — access granted")
elif not is_real:
print("Liveness check failed — please use a real selfie")
else:
print("Age requirement not met")
Use Cases
Combining with Identity Verification
For higher assurance, combine age estimation with 1:1 face verification — compare the selfie against an ID document to confirm both identity and age.