Age verification and age filters
1) Purpose and area
Exclude minors from access to products, communications and promotions, ensure compliance with the requirements of licenses and laws of advertising/consumer protection. Coverage: registration/login, wallet/payments, CRM/marketing, affiliates, game partners, support (CS), Risk/KYC, Legal/DPO, reporting.
2) Principles
Zero Access for minors. No game, deposits, bonuses and marketing.
Verify-before-Use. Full access only after successful age/identity verification.
Smallest data. We collect only the necessary, we use reliable sources.
Neutral communications. Without stigma, without revealing anti-fraud algorithms.
Provability. Artifacts and logs are suitable for audits and inspections.
3) Roles and RACI
KYC Lead/Head of Compliance - policy, vendors, exceptions. (A)
Risk/KYC Analysts - verification, escalation, solutions and retention. (R)
CS/Trust & Safety - communication with players, appeal processing. (R)
Marketing/CRM/Affiliates - Age filters and campaign exceptions. (R)
Product/UX/Engineering - registration flows blocking circuits, APIs to vendors. (R)
Legal/DPO - local regulations, privacy/PII, DPIA. (C)
Internal Audit - independent audits and CAPAs. (C)
Exec Sponsor (COO/CEO) - resources, "tone from the top." (I/A)
4) Age verification methods (stepwise)
Level 1 - Basic (Auto):- Match name + DR + address according to state/credit/telco registers (where allowed).
- Bank verification (open-banking/KYC-bank card → age ≥ threshold).
- Mob. operator (KYC-SIM, date of birth in profile).
- Passport/ID/of water. identity/banned + OCR/face match, liveness check.
- MRZ/barcode verification, lost/stolen document database.
- Comparison of selfies with a photo of the document.
- Notarial/state confirmations, certificates from state registers (if allowed).
- Alternatives for idle clients (bank letters, resident ID card, etc.) - only with additional risks and permissions.
Solution: "full/limited/refusal" access + reason and review period.
5) Age thresholds and regional profiles
Game access: 18 +, or 21 + (individual markets/verticals).
Marketing: segmentation with guaranteed 18 +/21 + targeting.
Affiliates: job responsibility for filters and evidence.
Market profiles are maintained in the Age Profiles catalog: thresholds, permissible sources, SLAs and reporting formats.
6) UX threads and copyright
Registration (before verification):- "We are required to confirm your age for secure access. It will take a couple of minutes"
- Explanation of what data is required and why; link to privacy policy.
- "Age confirmed. Full control is enabled"
- "The system was unable to automatically confirm the age. Download the document (ID/Passport/Rights). Unnecessary fields can be hidden/smeared according to the instructions"
- 'We can't provide access: the age is below the legal threshold. Account will be closed, data will be deleted by policy"
- "If you think there has been an error, please appeal with the documents here. We will respond within X days"
7) Age filters in marketing/affiliates
CRM: global suppression flags 18-/21-, "unknown age" = exclude from all promos.
Paid advertising: mandatory age targets/interests 18 +/21 +; site audit; a look-alike ban on "youth" segments.
Creatives: no teen style/language/imagery; disclaimers "18 +/21 +."
Affiliates: contractual obligations: age filters, banning youth venues, passing marketing hits for selective reviews; audit right and clawback.
8) Data, privacy and retention
9) Border and special cases
17 years 11 months: automatic failure and soft communication; block re-registration until date 18/21 +.
Age "uncertain": denied access, re-request sources/docks.
Different dates on docks/registers: escalation to manual review.
Suspicion of substitution/someone else's document: refusal + internal fraud flag, if necessary, notification of the regulator.
"Family" card/phone: not accepted as proof of age.
10) Control procedures
Pre-use gate: block of games/deposits before age verification.
Dual-control: manual approvals on controversial cases (two analysts).
Document Forensics: liveness tests, anti-screen, EXIF analysis, font/field validation.
Spend-gate: when changing the status "unknown age" → "pass" update CRM/PSP/aggregators.
Monitoring: alerts for re-registration/device/address matches.
Vendor QA: regular vendor tests (precision/recall, SLA).
11) KPI/KRI and dashboard
Age Pass Rate (auto/dock/manual).
Time-to-Verify (median/95th percentile).
False Accept/Reject.
Unknown-to-Pass Time (reg → full access).
Promo Suppression Integrity (% minors/unknown in promo = 0).
Auditability (% of cases with full package of artifacts).
Vendor SLA (response rate ≤ X sec/min).
12) Checklists
Before launch
- Age threshold by market, sources and SLA agreed with Legal/DPO.
- Login/login streams block access before PASS.
- CRM/Ads/Affiliates are connected to suppression flags.
- Vendor (s) set up, test cases (positive/negative/edge) passed.
- Retention policy and instructions for masking docks published.
In operations
- Daily check of Unknown→Pass, cancellation of suspended cases.
- Selective reviews of manual solutions (≥ 10 %/quarter).
- SLA Complaints and Appeals ≤ X days.
- Synchronize statuses with game providers/PSPs.
Audit/Improvement
- Quarterly A/B tests of copyright and registration steps (no security compromise).
- Reconciliation of logs with reports to regulators.
- CAPA for repeated incidents/comments.
13) Scripts and templates
A) Request for documents (neutral):D) The answer to the question "why can't you play right away?"
14) Technical skeleton
Events:- `age_check_started`, `age_check_auto_pass/fail`, `docs_requested`, `docs_received`, `manual_review_pass/fail`, `age_pass_synced_to_crm/psp/games`, `marketing_suppressed`.
- `POST /kyc/age-check`, `POST /kyc/docs`, `GET /kyc/status`, `POST /kyc/decision`, `POST /crm/suppress-age`, `POST /affiliates/age-policy-ack`.
- At-rest encryption; EXIF stripping; artifact checksums; WORM logs.
- `age. gate. required`, `age. docs. level2`, `ads. suppress. unknown`, `affiliates. enforce_age_filters`.
15) Frequent mistakes and prevention
Access before confirmation. → Hard pre-use gate.
"Unknown age" is included in the promo. → Default is suppress.
Weak document checks. → Liveness, face match, forensics.
Excessive data collection. → Minimize fields, mask unnecessary.
Long manual check. SLA →, queues, auto priorities, workflow bot.
Uncoordinated affiliates. → Contractual clauses, post-beck control, right to audit.
16) Regional cards (template)
Рынок: ______
Возрастной порог: 18+ / 21+
Допустимые источники: госреестр / банк / телко / документы
SLA: ack ≤ __ ч, решение ≤ __ дн
Отчетность: формат/частота
Особые требования: хранение локально, запрет биометрии и т.п.
17) 30-day implementation plan
Week 1
1. Approve thresholds and sources by market; DPIA.
2. Specify log/lock flows and data/log model.
3. Select/contract vendor (s) (registers/docks/telco/bank).
Week 2
4) Implement pre-use gate and API integration; set up CRM/Ads suppression.
5) Prepare copyright/locales, masking instructions.
6) Train CS/KYC; release scripts/FAQs.
Week 3
7) Pilot (5-10%): Pass Rate/TTVerify/False Reject metrics.
8) Tuning thresholds/timeouts/UX.
9) Checking affiliates and advertising offices for filters.
Week 4
10) Full release; dashboard KPI; daily monitoring of incidents.
11) Management report; CAPA on comments.
12) Plan v1. 1: add. sources (open-banking/telco), auto-prioritization of manual cases.
Related sections:
- KYC procedures and inspection levels
- AML policy and transaction control
- Compliance Awareness/Code of Ethics
- Responsible play and limits
- Self-exclusion and account blocking
- Reality Checks and Game Reminders
- Regulatory reports and data formats
- Internal and external audit/Audit checklists