Digital ID comes of age as pubs and bars get go-ahead for biometric scan tech
Plastic ID such as driving licences and passports will still be accepted at pubs and bars. Photograph: Keith Morris/AlamyView image in fullscreenPlastic ID such as driving licences and passports will still be accepted at pubs and bars. Other tech under consideration as part of the government push to digitise age verification for alcohol sales include a device which scans the veins in a drinker’s finger to verify their age.
- ▪Plastic ID such as driving licences and passports will still be accepted at pubs and bars.
- ▪Photograph: Keith Morris/AlamyView image in fullscreenPlastic ID such as driving licences and passports will still be accepted at pubs and bars.
- ▪Other tech under consideration as part of the government push to digitise age verification for alcohol sales include a device which scans the veins in a drinker’s finger to verify their age.
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| Original publisher | The Guardian — Tech |
| Canonical URL | https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/sep/15/pubs-and-bars-get-go-ahead-digital-id-biometric-scan-tech |
| Publication time | Tue, 15 Sep 2026 04:00:26 GMT |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-15T04:16:51.614Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-15T04:16:51.614Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | YKAGjx8g-DvP · 1 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Plastic ID such as driving licences and passports will still be accepted at pubs and bars. Photograph: Keith Morris/AlamyView image in fullscreenPlastic ID such as driving licences and passports will still be accepted at pubs and bars. Photograph: Keith Morris/AlamyHospitality industryDigital ID comes of age as pubs and bars get go-ahead for biometric scan techNew laws coming into force this week aim to streamline age checks although old-style plastic IDs will still be allowedRobert Booth UK technology editorTue 15 Sep 2026 00.00 EDTSharePrefer the Guardian on GoogleYounger drinkers in England and Wales will be able to prove their age with a digital ID starting this week as new laws give pubs, off-licences, nightclubs and restaurants the right to use biometric scanning technology to check…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at The Guardian — Tech.
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