UK cinemas want you to use your iPhone to prove your age

Prove your age with the app

You may need to switch to AirPlane mode during a movie, but the UK Cinema Association says filmgoers who may need to verify their age can now use a digital ID stored on their smartphone to do so.

Big cinema chains adopt digital ID

Cinemas including Odeon, Cineworld, Showcase Cinemas and the Vue chains are introducing support for digital ID at participating cinemas. The ID system lets customers aged 13-years or more prove their age without requiring any additional documents.

Cinema chains observe that since the pandemic more people of an age likely to require such ID are attending the movies than before.

Phil Clapp, CEO at the UK Cinema Association, said:

“Of the 165 million to 170 million admissions per year UK cinemas were seeing pre-pandemic, around 30 per cent fall within the 15-24 year old bracket (and around 20 per cent within the 9-14 year old age group). Since cinemas re-opened last May those proportions are likely to be even higher.

“For many wanting to get into a ‘15’ or even ‘18’ certificate film, proving their age – without a passport or driving licence to hand – can be incredibly difficult and an understandable source of frustration should they be turned away from the cinema. This new partnership offers a straightforward and modern way to reduce the likelihood of that happening.”

How to create a cinema ID

Uses build their ID with the Yoti or Post Office EasyID app on their device.

Once in the app they must upload a government-approved proof of identity, such as a passport or (unlikely for teenagers) driving license and take a selfie.

[Also read: Apple, Google and Microsoft want FIDO to kill passwords]

How to use the ID

Setting it up

• • Download the free Yoti (or partner’s Post Office EasyID app) app from Android Play or the Apple App Store
  • Add a photo ID and a current photo to verify their identity.
  • Open the Yoti app – tap to show the ID card and select age (no other personal details are shared).

At the cinema

• • Present the ID card to cinema staff:
  • The Digital ID card will show the verified photo of the individual and their verified ‘Age Over…’
  • There is a hologram on the Digital ID card that moves when the phone is tilted – for anti- spoofing purposes
  • Cinema staff can scan the QR code on the card with a freely available web app for additional verification.

What this means?

The slow creep toward digital ID continues each time a process such as this becomes digitized.

That suits Apple, of course, which has been resolutely engaged on its mission to digitize the contents of your wallet, including government ID.

There will, inevitably, be a point at which passports, national identity, driving licenses and every other form of identity will be accepted digitally, though given devices get lost, stolen, broken and run out of power it seems highly unlikely we’re abandoning some form of printed ID just yet. Though we will get to leave them at home more often.

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