Vape and Tobacco Shop ID Verification with PDF417

The Identity Data Problem for vape and tobacco retailers

Federal and state minimum-age rules require checks on young-looking buyers, and small shops lack time for careful manual review. Teams also need to keep a readable barcode separate from a verified person or authentic card; mixing the two creates compliance and product risk.

Deterministic Barcode Parsing with Human Confirmation

Scan the card back at the counter, display the computed age, and log that a check happened without keeping more identity data than needed. StructOCR’s PDF417 API decodes the barcode on the back of US driver licenses and state ID cards and parses the AAMVA record without asking a generative model to reconstruct unreadable values. Both licenses and non-driver state ID cards are accepted; document_kind records which one was presented. Store staff remain responsible for lawful sales; barcode parsing does not detect a borrowed or fake card.

Workflow Applications

Server-Side PDF417 Integration

Send the complete card-back image from a protected backend. This example selects fields relevant to vape and tobacco retailers and treats HTTP 422 as a retake or review state.

import base64
import os
import requests

with open("card-back.jpg", "rb") as image_file:
    image = base64.b64encode(image_file.read()).decode("ascii")

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.structocr.com/v1/driver-license-pdf417",
    headers={"x-api-key": os.environ["STRUCTOCR_API_KEY"]},
    json={"img": image},
    timeout=30,
)

if response.status_code == 422:
    body = response.json()
    print("Retake or review:", body.get("error"), body.get("capture_issue"))
else:
    response.raise_for_status()
    data = response.json()["data"]
    print("date_of_birth:", data.get("date_of_birth"))
    print("date_of_expiry:", data.get("date_of_expiry"))
    print("document_kind:", data.get("document_kind"))

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "type": "drivers_license",
    "document_kind": "id_card",
    "source": "pdf417",
    "country_code": "USA",
    "region": "CA",
    "document_number": "SAMPLE1234",
    "surname": "SAMPLE",
    "given_names": "ALEX MORGAN",
    "first_name": "ALEX",
    "middle_name": "MORGAN",
    "sex": "X",
    "date_of_birth": "1990-01-15",
    "date_of_issue": "2025-01-15",
    "date_of_expiry": "2030-01-15",
    "address": "100 EXAMPLE AVE",
    "city": "SAMPLE CITY",
    "postal_code": "00000",
    "vehicle_class": null,
    "restrictions": null,
    "endorsements": null,
    "document_discriminator": "SAMPLE-DISCRIMINATOR",
    "issuer_identification_number": null,
    "aamva_version": 10,
    "jurisdiction_version": 0
  }
}