This Age Verification Policy (“Policy”) explains how FREEPODS LTD (“FREEPODS”, “we”, “our” or “us”) verifies that customers buying from freepods.co.uk (the “Website”) are aged 18 or over, whether placing a one-off order or creating a Subscription. This Policy should be read alongside our Terms and Conditions, our Subscription Services terms, our Delivery Information policy, and our Cookie Notice.
1. Why We Verify Your Age
1.1 It's the law: It is a criminal offence under the Nicotine Inhaling Products (Age of Sale and Proxy Purchasing) Regulations 2015 to sell vaping products, with or without nicotine, to anyone under the age of 18. This offence applies regardless of intent.
1.2 Proxy purchasing: It is also a criminal offence for an adult to buy, or attempt to buy, vaping products on behalf of someone under the age of 18.
1.3 Our approach: We have a zero-tolerance approach to underage sales. The checks described in this Policy are designed to meet our obligations under the Nicotine Inhaling Products (Age of Sale and Proxy Purchasing) Regulations 2015, the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016, the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026, and the Online Safety Act 2023.
2. Browsing the Website
2.1 Age confirmation gate: You must confirm that you are aged 18 or over before browsing certain parts of the Website.
2.2 This is a screening step only: Confirming your age to browse the Website is not, by itself, sufficient proof of age. As explained in Clause 3, we carry out further, independent age verification before any order is dispatched.
3. Age Verification When You Order
3.1 Independent verification: When you create an account or place an order, we use an independent third-party age verification provider to check your details against official data sources, such as the electoral register, mobile network data, or credit reference information.
3.2 Self-declaration is not enough: A simple tick-box confirmation of your age is not, on its own, sufficient evidence of age under current regulatory guidance, and we will not dispatch an order on this basis alone.
3.3 In most cases, this is automatic: In most cases, this check happens automatically in the background and you will not need to do anything further.
3.4 If we cannot verify you automatically: If we are unable to verify your age automatically, we may ask you to provide a copy of valid photographic ID (such as a passport, photocard driving licence, or PASS-accredited ID card), and in some cases a selfie photograph, so that we or our age verification provider can confirm your age manually.
3.5 Orders are held pending verification: Your order will be held and will not be dispatched until age verification has been completed successfully. If we are unable to verify that you are 18 or over, we will cancel your order and refund any payment you have made, in accordance with our Returns & Refunds Policy.
4. Age Verification at the Point of Delivery
4.1 A further check on delivery: Because an online check cannot guarantee who will be present to accept your parcel, an adult aged 18 or over must be available to accept and sign for your delivery.
4.2 Challenge 25: In line with the industry-standard Challenge 25 approach, our courier partners may ask anyone who appears to be under the age of 25 to provide valid photographic ID before releasing your parcel. Full details of what happens if proof of age cannot be provided are set out in our Delivery Information policy.
5. Returning Customers
5.1 We may remember your verification: Once your age has been successfully verified, we may link this to your account so that you do not need to repeat the process for every order.
5.2 We may ask you to re-verify: We may ask you to verify your age again if your account, payment or delivery details change significantly, periodically as required by our age verification provider, or where the law requires us to do so.
6. How We Use Your Information
6.1 Data minimisation: We only collect the information reasonably necessary to verify your age, in line with UK GDPR. We will not use this information for any other purpose without telling you.
6.2 What our age verification provider shares with us: Where we use a third-party age verification provider, in most cases they confirm to us only whether your age has been successfully verified; they do not routinely share the underlying documents or data they used to reach that result with us.
6.3 ID submitted for manual checks: Where you submit photographic ID or a selfie for manual review, this is securely deleted once your age has been confirmed, other than the minimum records we and our provider are required to retain for legal and audit purposes (see Clause 7).
6.4 Further information: For more information on how we and our age verification provider handle your personal information, please see our Cookie Notice and our Privacy Policy.
7. Record-Keeping
We keep a record of the age verification checks we carry out, including any checks that were unsuccessful (“refusals”), so that we can demonstrate our compliance with the law if we are asked to do so by Trading Standards or another regulator.
8. If You Believe a Mistake Has Been Made
If you believe your age has been verified incorrectly, or that an order has been wrongly refused or cancelled on age verification grounds, please contact our Customer Care team and we will look into this for you.
9. Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Policy, please contact our Customer Care team:
Phone: 07344 295 958 (Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm, excluding Bank Holidays)
Email: info@freepods.co.uk
Post: FREEPODS LTD, 27 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AX
This Policy was most recently updated on 1st June 2026. We may update this Policy from time to time; any changes will take effect 7 days after the date we post the updated version on the Website.