Youth Prevention, What Can We Do?

July 8, 2025

Josh Bramley

4 Minute Read

As with smoking and alcohol purchase, vaping is strictly prohibited to be sold and used by anybody under the age of 18 in the United Kingdom and is such classed as an age-restricted product. This means that retailers can NOT serve the product to anybody under the age of 18.

This was further extended on 1st October 2015 when the Department of Health and Social Care brought in the law that makes it illegal for adults to buy (or try to buy) age-restricted products such as alcohol, tobacco, e-cigarettes or vape related products for someone under the age of 18.

While it is the responsibility of the retailer to ensure they do not sell age-related products to people who are under the minimum legal age online or in-store, this is rightly governed in the UK by Trading Standards. Selling age-restricted products to someone underage is a criminal offense and penalties can include fines of up to £5,000 and up to 6 months in prison. It is something to be taken and tackled seriously to further prevent youth access to vapes and vaping products!

As you’ve probably seen and heard, vaping in youth culture has been highly documented in many news outlets over the years, with ASH reporting that in 2024, 18% of young people aged 11-17 years old have tried a vape, with 7.2% currently vaping at least once a month.

While these statistics are alarming, as a responsible retailer, at VapeHQ, we use multiple means to ensure that vapes and vape related products are not sold to anybody under the legal age requirement, will not be passed on to someone under the legal age and don’t fall into the hands of under 18s.

Online Store -

1account

Our online store uses 1account, a third-party, industry recognised service, who work alongside Trading Standards and are the leading age and identity verification service. This service runs independent checks from only the most reliable sources to verify the customer is aged 18 or over. These checks can include the UK electoral roll, credit record and mobile phone number. They carry out as few checks as possible and in most cases your age can be verified instantly.

To verify you are indeed over the age of 18, information such as your name, current address and phone number are used when you place your order online with us. This sometimes can lead to further information being requested, such as your date of birth. On occasions where your age can’t be verified, an official piece of ID (such as a passport or driving license) alongside a selfie is used. (Please note any copies of such information are not stored).

In-store -

Challenge 25

In-store we train our staff to take the challenge 25 approach, something you may have seen or heard in all age-restricted product industries, including your local supermarket. This requires the staff to ask for ID for any customer they deem to be under the age of 25, if valid ID is failed to be produced then we will refuse to serve them.

Valid forms of ID include a UK Driving License, Passport or a Citizen Card featuring the PASS accredited logo. We don’t accept photographs of ID, it has to be the physical item.

As a proud member of the UKVIA we are also subject to spot checks in all our stores on a regular basis, without prior warning. We are proud to say our staff are highly consistent in passing these.

MyCheckr

Since November 2023 we are pleased to say that we have MyCheckr installed in 12 of our stores around the country.

The MyChekr device, which uses sophisticated software, and an integrated camera to estimate someones age, is able to suggest age checks with a high success rate of 98.8% accuracy, it is still to be used alongside our own staff training, and aid in the judgement of the Challenge 25 approach to help identify customers who are under the age of 25, further preventing youth access to vape-related products.

The technology inside the devices has been trained by looking at millions of people from varying ages, is completely anonymous and doesn’t transmit or store any data from the people who use it. Upon facing the MyCheckr unit, the camera will detect the face leading the screen to light up green if the person appears over 25 and red if they appear under 25 suggesting further age verification is needed.