By taking advantage of blockchain technology, companies and institutions can improve the way they perform ID verification processes (which is crucial in some fields) in several industries and applications.
The Civic company recently signed a deal to bring blockchain ID to approximately one thousand (1,000) vending machines, according to reports. The firm made the announcement of a partnership with 12 widely known automated retail businesses to bring age verification technology to a broader market.
The 12 Companies that Will Work with Civic
The companies that will work together with Civic are AAEON, AR Systems, Fastcorp Vending, Global Vending Group,
Civic is well known for the development of an anonymous age verifying beer vending machine, together with Anheuser-Busch InBev. A person scans the Civic QR code on the machine, which requests only the information needed for it to dispense a beer. The machine is then informed only whether the user is over 21. If this is affirmative, it will dispense a beer.
Now, thanks to the announced alliance, the company will work to take the technology usage to another level. “Vending machines represent an introduction to the mass market, where people can see how digital identity functions in the real world, as well as opening up an entirely new market for automated retail,” Civic’s CEO Vinny Lingham said in a statement.
A Global Network
Between Civic’s 12 new associates, they administrate over one million internet-connected vending machines all over the world. Civic states that the expected date in which the technology will be used in 1,000 machines is near the end of the year.
People will only have to perform a document scan to complete the verification process in most cases. The requested document is mostly the person driver’s license. Civic has used “knowledge-based authentication” in past demos, which involve questions that only one person can answer.
Civic also announced that it will soon release the Civic Pay App as the mean to integrate automated retail solutions and vending machines. Right now, there are more than three million connected vending machines at a global scale. The number is expected to grow to 5.4 million within the next three years.
Allegedly, the company is expecting to use Gemini’s GUSD in the Civic Pay app, with the possibility of adding more tokens at a later date.
AAEON’s Impressions
Paul Yang, which is currently the General Manager at AAEON, observed that “speaking with Civic, we immediately recognized the vision and how identity verification could help AAEON embark on an entirely new market of vending opportunities. The combination of identity and payment enables a frictionless user experience that allows for a new subset of product offerings.”
Civic, which is a personal identity verification protocol that takes the best of distributed ledger technology to improve digital identities management, is also said to be experimenting with tobacco, alcohol, and hemp-related products.
By Andres Chavez
