Yoti to provide biometric identification for YALP payments app

New cashless payments platform YALP has onboarded London-based Yoti to incorporate its biometric technology to the app.

Developed by British Amusement Catering Trade Association (BACTA), YALP is payments app targeted at supporting the gaming sector and the newfound collaboration acts as part of its ‘robust social responsibility credentials.’ 

Greg Wood, who has been leading BACTA’s involvement, 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.”

Bringing in Yoti’s technology will enable operators that utilise YALP to 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 by drawing on a dataset of many thousands of photos tagged with verified ages.

“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.” added wood. 

The machine learning engine features an algorithm that measures the age of a person far ‘more accurately than a human being can.’

Earlier this month, developers of YALP Game Payment Technology brought Harris Hagan onboard to support its development.

“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,” continued Wood. 

“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.”