Age Verification & Offensive Weapons Act 2019
All orders which include Razor Blades will be shipped using Royal Mail's age verification service
The UK government published the new Offensive Weapons Act 2019 in April 2023 and invoked the following legal requirement to all vendors of Blades including Razor Blades as detailed in the following extracted summary from the act .
Sale of bladed articles to persons under 18
It is already an offence to sell articles with blade or sharp point to a person under 18, unless it is a knife with a folding blade of 3 inches (7.62 cm) or less[footnote 3]. Section 34 of the Offensive Weapons Act 2019 extends the range of items to which the existing offence applies.
The existing law
Section 141A of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 prohibits the sale of the following bladed articles to under 18s:
- any knife, knife blade or razor blade (other than a razor blade permanently enclosed in a cartridge or housing where less than 2mm is exposed)[footnote 4]
The legalities for Shaving Time are the following:
- It is now unacceptable to have a checkbox ticked by the customer confirming that they are 18 or over without any 3rd party confirmation or be in receipt of an email from the customer stating that they are over 18 years old.
The legal requirements to avoid prosecution are the following:
-
the seller has a system in place to verify the age of the purchaser and that they are not under 18, and that the system is likely to prevent purchases by under 18s.
-
the package when dispatched by the seller is clearly marked that it both contains a bladed article and that it can only be delivered and handed over to a person aged 18 or over (whether the purchaser or someone representing them)
-
the seller has taken all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to ensure that when the package is delivered, it is handed over to a person aged 18 or over. This applies whether the seller delivers the package themselves or through a third party, for example by staff at a collection point
-
the seller does not deliver the package, or arrange for it to be delivered, to a locker
Shaving Time now ship all products which require Age verification using Royal Mail Tracked Age Verification service, The delivery person will request ID from any customer who looks under the age of 25.