An age gate is a mechanism used by websites to restrict access to sales or content to underage users. Many e-cigarette companies voluntarily implement age-gates in an effort to demonstrate their initiative in youth prevention.
Most major combustible cigarette brands have stringent age-verification gates on their homepages that require driver’s license information or the last four digits of the social security number to access the website. Many e-cigarette brands do not have an age-restriction gate on their homepage. Among those that do have it, most age gates require the user to acknowledge if they are over a certain age by indicating a simple “yes/no” response, while others may ask for date of birth.
In the series of images below, many simply ask the user if they are over 18 years of age, while some may ask for a date of birth. These forms of age verification rely on the honor code, and therefore have no way to deter underage users who simply lie about their age in order to access the content. Online age-verification has proven to be very difficult, and studies have shown the ineffectiveness of many age gates in preventing youth sales. Larger tobacco industry, however has much more advanced age-verification that will often require a social security number.
