Along with Experian and TransUnion, Equifax provides consumers and businesses with credit information on people everywhere, and they're working on a new, unified method of age-verification called the Over-18 I-Card. Here's how it works:
Equifax's new system stores a user's actual ID information in one, secure location. The user can then use that unified keycard to access any age-restricted areas on the Internet.
But as of now, it's just an idea. Online merchants have yet to try out Equifax's new system, which may be too cumbersome to use in its current state.
Simply acquiring an I-Card is simple enough. Users don't even need a driver's license or a passport to get one – a social security number is good enough. The sign-up process takes users through an application process similar to that needed to procure a credit report.
But unfortunately, that's where the simplicity ends and the proprietary software comes in. In order to use Equifax's new system, users must download and install a Windows-only program called Azigo.
But Azigo doesn't just run the Over-18 I-Card. It also installs a suite of services and plugins into a user's web browser. Users could conceivably use the I-Card for age-verification, but that raises the last problem: No place on the web accepts it yet.
Currently there are no versions available for Mac or Linux, though Equifax is promising a Mac version by the first quarter of 2009. There is no set date for a Linux version.