Mr. John Dunne:

In England, they can check bank records, driving licence records or council tax records. Those are all databases where users are over the age of 18. If they do not appear on those databases, that flags that the sale to that purchaser needs further attention. Most retailers I know would not sell a product if a sale to a purchaser was flagged but some of them would follow up on that manually with the purchaser and request further information such as a driver’s licence. Another important aspect is that retailers in England will not and cannot legally sell their products to anybody who they have not age-verified. For instance, if somebody is age-verified under the name Joe Bloggs but the order comes in under a different name or with an instruction to please ship to a different address, that is called proxy purchasing, which is not allowed. The name must match the person who has been verified.