Bacta to integrate latest age estimation technology in YALP app

YALP, the secure cashless payments app, has underlined its robust social responsibility credentials through incorporating secure biometric technology from London-based Yoti. The partnership will help operators meet age verification requirements and promote safer gaming and data minimisation. Users can prove their age without revealing their date of birth or providing any additional personal data.

Yoti’s award-winning technology brings faster, simpler, and more secure ways to know your customers. The company is recognised for its commitment to rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.

Drawing on a dataset of many thousands of photos tagged with verified ages, Yoti’s machine learning engine has generated an algorithm that is able to gauge the age of a person far more accurately than a human being can – and it improves as Yoti continues to train it.  Explaining the practicalities, Greg Wood, who has been leading bacta’s involvement in the ground breaking project, said: “YALP players will look into a camera and the Yoti system will then estimate their age without the need for them to register or share any additional personal details. The image used to estimate their age is then automatically deleted. The innovative technology uses an artificial intelligence technique called “deep learning” to search for patterns in large and complex sets of data. Deep learning is a large, artificial neural network, inspired by biological brains, which can be ‘taught’ (or trained) by showing it hundreds-of-thousands of labelled examples to provide accurate answers on unseen data.”

“Although most  people will be automatically verified by the age estimation system, those who look younger will be able to share their verified over-18 attribute from the date of birth in their Yoti app, which is verified from an official ID document such as a passport or driving licence.  Significantly, the Yoti technology works across gender, age and skin tone making it the most accurate and comprehensive method of rapidly confirming a consumer’s age without compromising personal privacy.”

He continued: “When we embarked on the development programme for YALP we were very aware of how a cashless payments app could, and should, incorporate key social responsibility initiatives, including the ability to set both time and spend limits, which enable players to take greater personal control of their gambling activities.  The agreement with Yoti is one more step on the social responsibility journey, helping venues across the gambling landscape to undertake age verification and for consumers to establish their status in a safe, secure and non-invasive way. Yoti is passionate about using technology as a force for good. I am delighted that it will be contributing to the very important issue of social responsibility in the gambling entertainment space.”