Dorset puts online age checks to the test

Dorset Council’s Trading Standards team is stepping up action to protect young people from harmful products.

Officers are targeting illegal sales of age restricted items, including knives, tobacco, vapes, alcohol, solvents, fireworks, petrol and age rated films and computer games, making clear these goods must never be sold to anyone under the legal age whether the sale happens in a shop or online.

To check that retailers are following the law, Trading Standards regularly carries out test purchases using young volunteers, and while these operations have traditionally focused on high street businesses, the team has now expanded its work to reflect the growing number of young people shopping on the internet.

Knife crime remains a serious concern across the country, with recorded incidents up eighty seven per cent since twenty fourteen, although Dorset has generally seen incidents fall since twenty nineteen despite a slight increase in twenty twenty three compared with the previous year.

During the autumn, officers tested online sellers by arranging lawful purchases of five bladed items from five separate companies, four collected through click and collect counters and one sent for home delivery, and in every case the transaction was refused or cancelled when the young volunteer could not prove their age, showing that many retailers take their responsibilities seriously even though further work is still needed to stop children getting hold of harmful goods online.