New Tech, Higher Penalties to Stop Fake IDs

PRESS RELEASE

The Hospitality Association has called for greater penalties for those using false IDs to access alcohol. This call has been included in submissions to the review of the Sale of Liquor Act, being run by Sir Geoffrey Palmer, President of the Law Commission. Prosecutions for utilising false IDs, such as the current court case involving boys from Westlake Boys High School, was a good sign, said Hospitality Association Chief Executive Bruce Robertson. He also indicated it was important for licensees to remain vigilant and the new technology available to licensees would help identify false IDs and lead to more prosecutions. Tools being used by the industry had to become more sophisticated as the fake cards have also become more sophisticated and harder to detect.

HANZ is supporting a New Zealand designed system to introduce advanced technology tools to help stop the use of fake ID’s. HANZ, Scott Necklen, National Operations Manager indicated that "We have searched for some time for better tools and solutions for our members to enable a simple, quick, security check against various ID's commonly used by our members younger patrons. Clearly more ID fraud or review errors have become prevalent in recent years in New Zealand as also seen in the rest of the world. The PASSMATE system now allows a simple enabling tool to help our members better assess bone-fide patron access. MillenTech has been an excellent partner in meeting our needs in tailoring its systems to our exacting New Zealand conditions."

HANZ has signed a 3 year partnership with MillenTech NZ for its PASSMATE identity verification system to support members with on and off licence ID verification.

Ron DeDera (MillenTech's CEO) said, "We have specialised in the development of authentication systems solutions for years in high security areas for banks and border control applications. We have now used some of these sophisticated techniques to fit the needs of the retail Age ID sensitive market sectors. The PASSMATE solution now easily assists the retail, or professional door host staff with a simple yet sophisticated tool to objectively vet the security features and age of patron's ID's presented. There is now far less stress or fear of confrontation in comparison to the traditional "one on one" subjective Visual check."

Industrial and Occupational Psychologist Keith MacGregor, Managing Dir. of Personal Psychology NZ Ltd. assisted MillenTech's review of New Zealand's Age ID challenge in comparison to other countries with similar group profiles. The confrontation factor of traditional one to one checking of ID's presents an enormous challenge to ‘getting it right’. The typical subjective visual check can often be a very stressful task, and inherently stress may introduce many potential unconscious errors and oversights in the process. Introduction of this tool in the process greatly relieves this stress response for both parties during the checking process -- making it a much more natural and non-confrontational process -- and resulting with far less mistakes."

ENDS

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