Abstract: A method whereby the date of birth (age) of a consumer engaging in e-commerce over the Internet is verified. The present invention is launched from a merchant's website when an age sensitive transaction—alcohol or tobacco purchase, access to an adult web site, etc., —is being undertaken. The system first checks to see if the consumer is a known entity with a known date of birth. If the consumer is not known to the system, then the system checks public records from information supplied to the system by the consumer. If the date of birth is still unknown after such a check, the consumer uploads an image of photo identification which is checked for date of birth either via software or manually. Once the date of birth is known, the transaction is approved or denied based on the totality of the facts of the transaction.