Water always finds the lowest point thats a fact of life So too is this Underaged consumers will always try and often find ways to circumvent restrictions on purchases of goods that they are not supposed to buy until they reach maturity or at least the age of majority Excuse the homespun wisdom but offering weak authentication defenses in the face of those determined young consumers can bring down heavy fines and unwanted attention and threaten a growing retail or online business In this case we are talking about the global market for eCigarettes To learn more about how to better authenticate online purchases of those products the vapes the liquids and how to do so in ways that are seamless and secure PYMNTS spoke with Reinhard Hochrieser director of product management at Jumio an authentication solutions provider Market Growth First a word about the stakes involved According to one report the global eCigarette and vaping market will reach 471 billion by 2025 experiencing a compound annual growth rate CAGR of nearly 24 percent Though Jumio estimated that some 70 percent or more of eCigarette sales take place in stores those tiny storefronts that have seemingly popped up everywhere there is clearly a big chunk of those sales happening online with more room to grow the industrys digital revenue That said lax authentication measures for the online sales could provide regulators with another reason to crack down on the market However authentication also provides business opportunity Store Training Thats due in large part to the clerks employed by those stores Hochrieser told PYMNTS Sure clerks who check IDs to verify the legal purchasing ages for vape and associated items have the advantage in theory at least of being able to inspect those documents from different angles he said Its more secure in the store if you have an educated person doing the ID checks but many have not had the right training In addition when it comes to different states or different nations think of young people traveling in Europe for instance a clerk might be a de-facto expert on a few forms of identification yet easily fooled by forgeries of other states or countries ID documents So whats the solution at least for online purchases of eCigarettes Biometric Role In Jumios case the authentication effort comes down to ID data points biometrics and computer intelligence A consumer who tries to make an online purchase of eCigarettes might be asked to prove their age by depending on the retailer submitting a scan of their drivers license for instance or entering the last four digits of their social security number with that merchant then doing a background check Jumios authentication technology asks for those ID details and requests for the shopper to submit a selfie That provides another layer of proof that the consumer is who they have said they are not a parent grandparent or an older neer-do-well uncle cousin or friend To authenticate the consumer Jumio does not use information from any government database Its pretty hard to get access to that Hochrieser said Instead the company relies on its artificial intelligence AI and machine learning technologies and its experience with analyzing more than 150 million documents Furthermore it has human experts ready to review any borderline cases with the results then fed back into the system so it can get better he explained In Jumios view the inclusion of the selfie in the authentication process also has deterrence value The thinking is that underaged consumers who are about to attempt a criminal act a relatively minor one but still illegal will not want to attach their digital headshots to that offense which could turn away some illegitimate purchases Privacy Concerns What about privacy though According to Hochrieser eCigarette businesses that use the technology dont receive the full IDs submitted for age verification Instead they get data points that determine whether or not the transaction should be rejected or authorized That he said protects against a breach as potentially compromising information is not shared widely with a global client base Tobacco gambling and alcohol continue to gain more availability for online purchases which means authentication of those purchases will keep getting more important Biometric checks along with machine learning AI and human expertise seem likely to form the best defense against underaged purchases in the years to come LATEST INSIGHTS Our data and analytics team has developed a number of creative methodologies and frameworks that measure and benchmark the innovation thats reshaping the payments and commerce ecosystem Check out the latest PYMNTS report on Mobile Order-Ahead