Doctors and stores in Denmark have proposed digital IDs under the premise of preventing the sale of alcohol to minors.
Presently, employees have to guess a person’s age by appearance before deciding whether to ask for an ID.
Professional organizations and interest groups representing businesses and doctors have proposed making digital IDs mandatory when buying alcohol.
Under their proposal, when an alcoholic beverage is scanned, the employee would be automatically notified to check for ID. If the customer is using a debit card, a digital system would automatically check with a database if the user is over 18.
The system would not prevent all sales of alcohol to minors because it could be circumvented if the buyer simply uses another person’s card or uses cash.
“Our belief and hope is that it would make a very big difference,” said Claus Bøgelund Nielsen, the deputy chair of store owners’ trade union De Samvirkende Købmænd.
“This is a vision and a wish we have. There’s no country anywhere in the world that does this at the moment but we think it’s ideal to work in this direction.”
