Tesco and Asda in Britain will install a facial recognition system at their checkouts which will check a customer’s age when they buy alcohol and other restricted items.

The Fastlane software would take a picture of the customer and approve the purchase if they are clearly old enough, meaning a staff member would not need to come and intervene.

Shoppers will not have to register in advance, although regular customers can sign up to an app by linking a selfie to a passport or ID document, manufacturers said.

The picture will be deleted permanently* once it has served its purpose, the manufacturers said.

A more advanced version would see customers upload a selfie to a smartphone app and prove their identity using a passport or similar document.

At a self-service till, when an age-restricted item is scanned, a QR code* would appear on the screen which users can then scan with the Yoti app. The app will then take a photo of the user’s face to confirm their identity, before connecting to the till to verify the purchase. The facial recognition software could then confirm the customer’s age without needing to flag up* borderline cases*.(SD-Agencies)