Georgia ID scanning laws

Is it legal to scan IDs in Georgia?

Yes, with the customer's consent, obtained before the scan.

Georgia makes it an offense to scan another person's driver's license, permit or identification card without their prior knowledge and consent. The rule applies generally rather than only to alcohol licensees, so bars, retailers and other businesses are subject to the same requirement.

The statute does not provide a broad exception for fraud prevention, security or identity verification. Its main exemption is for law enforcement and government entities.

Reading information from the printed face of the card and entering it manually is different because no scan has taken place.

Do you have to check IDs in Georgia, and when?

Georgia does not require every customer to be scanned or carded, but an ID check is required when there is reasonable doubt about the customer's age.

For alcohol, the rule applies when a reasonable or prudent person could question whether the customer is at least 21. In that situation, the seller should request and be provided with proper identification.

The requirement is about inspecting the credential rather than using a particular technology. A scanner can support the process, but Georgia does not make scanning mandatory.

Similar age-verification approaches appear in Georgia's rules for tobacco, vape products and consumable hemp.

Which IDs provide protection in Georgia?

Georgia broadly recognizes government-issued documents that show identity and date of birth.

Proper identification is defined as a government-issued document containing a description or photograph of the person and their date of birth.

Examples include:

The list is not limited to those examples. The statute does specifically exclude a birth certificate and a traffic citation and complaint form.

Georgia has also issued guidance allowing retailers to accept the state's mobile ID through a compatible reader, although use of the mobile credential is optional for the retailer.

Can you keep data from an ID scan in Georgia?

Yes, if the customer consented to the scan.

When a person gives prior knowledge and consent, Georgia allows information collected from the scan to be stored and used for legitimate purposes.

The statute does not specify which fields may be stored, how long they may be retained or a fixed deletion deadline. That makes the consent surrounding the original scan especially important, because the permission to collect and use the information depends on the scan being lawful in the first place.

For venues, the practical distinction is therefore between a consented scan and a scan performed without consent, rather than between short and long retention periods.

What other Georgia laws reach the data you keep?

Georgia also regulates how certain customer records are disposed of.

Businesses must make covered records unreadable before discarding them, for example by shredding, erasing or otherwise destroying the information. Georgia guidance identifies data such as driver's license numbers, identification-card numbers and dates of birth as information that can fall within those requirements.

Georgia's breach-notification rules are narrower than those in some other states and are directed at specified types of data holders. Georgia does not currently have a comprehensive consumer privacy law or a general private-sector biometric privacy law.

Does scanning give you a defense if you serve a minor in Georgia?

No. Georgia does not create a separate legal defense for using an ID scanner.

The alcohol rule instead focuses on whether the seller acted knowingly and whether proper identification was provided. A careful ID check can therefore matter, but the protection does not depend on a scan result.

If a reasonable person would have questioned the customer's age and the seller failed to check identification, that failure can weigh against the seller when determining whether the violation was knowing. For venues, the takeaway is that scanning can support the ID-checking process, but it does not create legal protection that careful inspection of proper identification would not otherwise provide.

Can a customer refuse an ID scan in Georgia?

A scan requires the customer's consent, so the venue should not scan when that consent is refused.

Refusing the scan does not necessarily end the age check. Staff can still inspect the printed credential, and manually entering information from the visible face of the card falls outside the specific scanning rule.

Georgia's alcohol law also contemplates recording identifying information where a credential appears false or belongs to someone else. A venue can therefore maintain an ID-checking policy without forcing every customer through a scan.