Face trading: vending machines will start confirming age using biometrics
A biometrics age confirmation service is being prepared to launch in Russia — it will appear in vending machines in the summer, the office of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko told Izvestia. Thanks to this, it will be possible to buy age—restricted goods. To do this, you must first submit your data to a single biometric system. First of all, the changes will affect the sale of energy drinks, which since March have been sold only to people over the age of 18. In the future, the service will allow you to buy alcohol and tobacco at self-service cash desks without a passport. How safe it is to use such services and why Russians are not actively using them yet is described in the Izvestia article.
How can I buy energy products without a passport
In the coming months, a biometrics age confirmation service will appear in vending machines, the office of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko told Izvestia. It is planned to test the service in FitWend devices, a company representative said. Then it will be scaled by other organizations, the Center for Biometric Technologies (CBT), which acts as the operator of the unified Biometric System (UBS), is waiting.
It will be possible to buy energy products in vending machines using biometric age verification, Dmitry Grigorenko's office clarified. Starting from March 1, 2025, they cannot be sold to minors. And this product accounted for a significant part of the profit, said Chaba Zentai, CEO of FitWend.
— For vending machines, this service is the only opportunity to continue selling age—restricted goods, — said Ak Bars Bank, which participated in the development of the solution.
It is also planned that by the end of 2025, age verification using biometrics will appear at self-service cash desks (CSR) in retail chains, Dmitry Grigorenko's office clarified. They added: after that, the service can also be used to purchase any age-restricted goods, including alcohol and tobacco products.
How to confirm your age without a passport
To buy an age-restricted product, a person will need standard or verified biometrics, the CBT reminded. You can submit it in the application "Gosuslugi Biometria" or in bank branches.
Upon purchase, the EBS will receive a request for the number of full years of the buyer, the CBT clarified. The request is then redirected to the Unified Identification and Authentication System (USIA). If a signal arrives that the buyer is over 18 years old, the operation will be approved, if not, it will be rejected. Moreover, the payment will take place quickly — it takes no more than four seconds, Ak Bars Bank clarified.
To confirm the age, companies only need to install cameras for reading biometrics on existing terminals, the credit institution added. This should not be particularly costly for the market, but it will take time: about 3-6 months.
Representatives of the vending machine market consider the age confirmation service using biometrics to be the optimal solution, said Chaba Zentai. According to him, it is important to protect minors from 18+ products, but to maintain access to individual products for other customers.
Further implementation of the service at self-service cash desks will improve the customer experience and help increase the efficiency of stores, said Vyacheslav Kubaev, a representative of the Magnit group of companies. The new technology will speed up and simplify the process of purchasing "18+" products and will help free up the time of the outlet staff for customer service and solving more important operational tasks.
At the same time, it is important that companies do not include the cost of introducing new technologies in the cost of products, said Stanislav Bogdanov, Chairman of the ACORT Presidium.
Moreover, biometrics payments are already tightly integrated into everyday life. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, Sberbank's customers performed 37 million such operations, which is almost one and a half times more than in the whole of 2024. In the Dom bank.The Russian Federation has also noted a threefold increase in the number of users of biometric services for opening mortgage accounts since the beginning of the year, said Nikolai Kozak, deputy chairman of the board of the organization.
In general, Russian businesses are striving to make more active use of biometric services. Sber plans to launch a pilot of its own age verification service by the end of the year. Gazprombank and Dom Bank also reported interest in these technologies.Russian Federation", Absolut Bank and Postbank.
The Central Bank and Dmitry Grigorenko's office reminded that the transfer of data to the EBS is voluntary and biometric services are used only as an alternative method of payment or identity verification.
Why do I need biometrics?
— One of the brakes on the development of biometric services now is that many Russians are afraid to hand over such data. The reason is that the face and voice can allegedly be collected without a person's consent. But this is not the case: it can only be collected voluntarily, after clear consent," explained Alexander Bleznekov, head of information security at Telecom Exchange.
In addition, Russians fear that biometrics may fall into the hands of fraudsters, the expert added. However, the EBS is protected to the highest standards (from the FSB and other services), and the data is stored there in encrypted form separately from personal data. It was to ensure the security of such information that in the summer of 2023, commercial companies were banned from storing biometrics, they transferred everything to the state system.
— During the entire period of operation of the EBS, there has not been a single leak of biometric data of customers, — said the press service of the CBT.
Even if this had happened, it would have been difficult to use such information, Alexander Bleznekov added. In fact, the attackers would have received only the so—called vector - just an encrypted set of data about the client's face, whose identity would be impossible to determine. It is difficult to use this impression for hacking. For example, Apple's Face ID has a high degree of protection, uses three—dimensional scanning and infrared sensors to prevent counterfeiting, so the chances of hacking are minimal.
At the same time, the police and special services do not use data from the EBS — it can only be used to provide government and civil services, Alexander Bleznekov emphasized. The system is not connected to video surveillance cameras and is not used for surveillance, it is a separate technology used by law enforcement officers, it is not related to CBT.
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