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The new bartender’s best friend? An app to catch fake ID’s

Fake ID’s are a precious investment for many youngsters desperate to get their hands on a cold pint of beer and a big headache for the industry. Bar owners, bartenders and security team learn that failing to identify a fake ID may result in severe penalizations, fines and the potential loss of their license

This makes the constant challenge between bar staff and clients something close to a delicious game of chess where each opponent tries different moves to outsmart the other: every day, enthusiast college students show up at the bar flashing their newest $150 fake ID to permanently skeptical bartenders.

Well… bad news smart kids. A new jewel is here to help catch every underage drinker wannabe and send them back home until they are old enough to deserve that pint.

An American Company, Intellicheck Mobilisa created an app, BarZapp which scans a driver’s license’s barcode and verifies encoded information displaying the card owner’s name, date of birth, ID expiration and ID number.  Identities are confirmed—or not, in the case of a fake ID. Photos of sample IDs from the appropriate state are able to be shown to aid further visual inspection, which is far quicker than reviewing a book of sample ID’s –

The best part? It costs only $1.99 on iTunes. Although the company announced that bar and restaurant owners will need to purchase annual or monthly licenses, this is still a pretty good deal for bartenders to cover their butts.

Not only this but the BarZapp keeps track of bargoers, so it can identify who has been given the lifetime boot from a particular establishment. Could you ask more?

Evidently, this app will trigger a response from the vast industry of falsification which surely will come with a way around BarZapp, but in this moment we can say… sorry kids, probably next year.

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