The UK is seeing a concerning rise in knife-related crimes, sparking nationwide conversations about public safety. As online knife sales continue to grow, online retailers have an important role to play in addressing this issue. Online knife sellers have a duty to society that goes beyond the tick box of legal compliance—it’s about knowing for sure that what they sell doesn’t land in the wrong hands.
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), police-recorded offences involving knives or sharp instruments in England and Wales increased by 4% to 55,008 offences in the year ending September 2024.
The news and the social space are dominated by two tragic incidents where a knife used in a fatal crime was purchased online by minors. In one of the instances, the attacker used their mother's photo ID to complete the purchase. These instances spotlight how archaic and ineffective self-declaration and scanning a document ID is for age verification in high-risk cases like online knife sales.
The burden of implementing measures that provide greater confidence about the buyer's age and identity will fall on eCommerce and online stores that sell knives.
The Government is yet to finalise the specific measures required for online knife sales under upcoming legislation. However, based on current trends and regulatory discussions, it’s clear that businesses will need to:
With the Crime and Policing Bill on the horizon, it’s not a matter of if these changes will happen, but when.
While compliance with existing regulations is mandatory, proactive businesses are going further. By implementing higher levels of assurance about their buyers’ age, knife sellers can actively contribute to public safety.
Solutions that enable such a higher level of assurance while enhancing customer experience and speeding up checkouts exist today and can be switched on immediately.
Some of OneID®'s customers are ahead of the curve, having implemented advanced age verification solutions. OneID® is certified by the Age Check Certification Scheme (ACCS) and is being used by innovative online stores to verify age and other attributes instantly and securely. Its seamless journey minimises abandonment and speeds up checkout.
Ofcom, the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) regulator, has rated the use of Open Banking solutions for age verification as highly effective. While the OSA and Knife Sales come from two different Government Ministries, innovative eCommerce stores could use this as a guide when choosing an age verification solution.
Using bank-verified credentials, OneID® verifies age attributes with the highest degree of confidence and security while delivering a low-friction user experience.
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Factor |
What does it mean? |
Why should you care? |
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Technical Accuracy |
OneID® shares the data that has gone through banks’s stringent KYC and AML checks, which includes date of birth and address checks. |
Know for sure the person ordering knives is over 18. |
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Robust |
Bank data is secured using Strong Customer Authentication, which only the authorised customer can unlock – making it very hard for AI-powered deepfakes or synthetic IDs to bypass. |
No need to worry about someone using a fake ID or someone else's ID to buy a knife/knives from your platform. |
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Reliable |
Bank data is shared with OneID® using secure API calls digitally, making it deliver the same result every time, consistently, irrespective of conditions. |
Lighting or the angle of the face or document, or if the letters of a document are smudged or lost, can stop genuine customers or let bad actors slip through. But with none of that involved in OneID®, you can be sure only verified over-18s buy from your knife page. |
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Fairness |
OneID® is integrated with almost all banks in the UK – the high street ones as well as digital-first ones – offering a wide coverage to all. So if someone has a bank account and can access it online, they will be verified. |
Skin colour, race, clothing, headgear, Irrespective of a person’s skin colour or their accessories, will not deliver incorrect age check results. |
Approximately 50 million adults in the UK can access their bank account online or using their mobile banking app –more than those with a driver’s license or a passport. This enables you to verify 90% of the UK adults in seconds.
We no longer live in a world where the virtual and the real worlds exist in isolation. Whatever happens on the internet has repercussions in our lives offline. Whether it be identity fraud that inflicts financial loss or hate speech and harmful content that traumatises children, or for that matter an underage buying age restricted products like knives online.
Knowing with absolute certainty who you are selling knives to isn’t just good business practice—it’s a public safety imperative. This level of diligence helps online retailers fulfil their responsibility towards the community in which they are operating.
At OneID®, we believe that safer streets start with being safer online. By adopting robust verification measures, online knife sellers can play a pivotal role in reducing knife-related crimes.
Ready to strengthen your compliance and contribute to public safety? Install OneID® right away from the Shopify App Store.
Visit How to Sell Knives/Blades Online for dedicated resources, tools, and advice on meeting compliance requirements when selling knives online.