Shufti Recognised as Dual Leader in Liminal's 2026 Age Verification and Age Estimation Indexes, with Exceptional Ratings Across Both Benchmarks

Liminal’s independent buyer-led research positions Shufti among the highest-scoring vendors on Product Execution, Strategy, and Market Presence, citing its risk-based age assurance, sub-second inference, and privacy-preserving on-device capabilities

LONDON, May 19, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Shufti has been recognised as a Leader in both Age Verification and Age Estimation categories of the 2026 Liminal Index Report. The dual recognition spans Liminal's two flagship age assurance categories, with Shufti rated 'Exceptional' for Market Presence across both.

Liminal, an actionable intelligence firm, evaluates identity verification vendors across three weighted pillars, Product Execution, Strategy, and Market Presence, measuring scalability, capability coverage, innovation, verification accuracy, fraud resistance, and end-customer experience.

In the Age Verification Index, Liminal evaluated 189 vendors, and only 17 met the thresholds required for Leader inclusion, fewer than 10% of the field. Shufti is one of them, scoring 64% in Product Execution, well above Liminal’s 42% leadership cutoff, along with a top-quadrant Strategy score of 92%.

In the Age Estimation Index, Shufti is again ranked among 17 Leaders out of 80 vendors evaluated, scoring above the leadership threshold on both Strategy and Product Execution. Across both indexes, Shufti is rated "Exceptional" for Market Presence, Liminal's highest tier, above "Excellent" and "Strong."

"Achieving Leader status in both Age Estimation and Age Verification reflects what our customers experience every day, risk-based age assurance that is accurate, scalable, and privacy-preserving by design," said Shahid Hanif, Chief Executive Officer of Shufti. "We've built systems resilient to emerging fraud patterns like deepfakes and synthetic identities, while keeping verification fast and secure for legitimate users. Regulators are raising the bar, and our customers are scaling faster than ever. This recognition validates our commitment to delivering compliance without compromising user experience."

Why This Recognition Matters Now

Liminal's research describes an age assurance market under significant strain. Buyer confidence in legacy approaches is eroding, demand is accelerating, and many vendors still rely on static models that limit adaptability. Key findings from the report:

• 62% of the market still relies on static models that do not adapt to new fraud tactics; only 4% use a continuous learning approach.
• Roughly six in ten practitioners using facial age estimation have triggered internal reviews of their age assurance methods.
• A 27% projected increase in users required to complete a full age verification process over the next two years, with the share rising from 48% to 61%.
• 44% of buyers want clearer regulatory guidance, and 39% cite insufficient user education.
  
  

When buyers were asked which criteria matter most in selecting an age assurance vendor, Liminal found Scalability (93%) at the top of the list, followed by Accuracy, Compliance Alignment, Internal User Experience, and Pricing (91% each), all areas in which Shufti's platform is built to address.

A Multi-Method, Risk-Based Approach To Age Assurance

Shufti brings together four complementary methods within a single decisioning layer:

• AI-driven facial age estimation for low-friction entry points.
• Authoritative database lookups for fast secondary checks.
• Government ID document verification for higher-assurance use cases.
• Configurable liveness checks for protection against spoofing, deepfakes, and presentation attacks.
  
  

Customers can tailor how the system behaves: setting confidence thresholds, safety buffers around the 16+ and 18+ age cutoffs, and automatic step-up to higher-assurance methods when an estimate falls close to a regulatory boundary. Age estimation decisions return in sub-second timeframes, with full liveness and deepfake checks typically completing within seconds. Privacy-preserving age checks delete end-user data immediately after each decision, by default.

Liminal credits Shufti's in-house identity verification platform and full-stack ownership as core operational strengths.

Tom Gadsden, VP Product of Shufti, added, "The market is moving from single-approach age gates to layered, evidence-backed decisions in milliseconds. We enable businesses to select from a range of robust assurance methods, and consumers to pick the option that works for them, including managing fallbacks, while preserving end-user privacy by default. That balance of accuracy, speed, and privacy is what differentiates Shufti from other vendors."

Independent Certifications And Third-Party Benchmarking

Shufti holds multiple independent third-party validations. Cited in the Liminal Index Report:

• iBeta Level 1 and Level 2 certifications for liveness detection.
• KJM recognition in Germany for serving regulated content.
• NIST Face Analysis Technology Evaluation (FATE) participation, with placement within the top 15 across multiple Challenge 25 and Child Online Safety metrics.
  
  

Internal benchmarking on a consistent 100,000-image dataset spanning diverse demographics shows Shufti's age estimation model performing strongly on accuracy across the board, with performance tracked by race and gender rather than aggregate averages alone.

Additional Recognitions Achieved Independently

Independent of the report, Shufti also holds:

• iBeta Level 3 certification for single selfie passive liveness detection.
• 2025 Department of Homeland Security RIVR (Remote Identity Validation Rally) top performer; one of only 5 of 16 vendors with a false match rate below 0.01%.
  
  

A Privacy-First Product Capability

According to Liminal's analyst evaluation, Shufti's technical competencies place emphasis on differentiated privacy-preserving approaches and advanced fraud resistance. The report highlights privacy-preserving, on-device age estimation capabilities:

• Performs inference locally, operating on the device or in the browser without internet connectivity.
• Transmits no facial data, in line with default data minimisation.
• Issues reusable age tokens, supporting repeat use cases.
  
  

Liminal notes this approach positions Shufti for jurisdictions with heightened privacy sensitivity, reflecting a longer-term view that age assurance must support repeat use cases while minimising data exposure and infrastructure cost.

Built for Global Scale

Liminal's analyst note also highlights Shufti's global footprint and pricing flexibility, citing:

• 2,000+ businesses served globally
• Operations across 240+ countries and territories
• Stated capacity to scale up to one million verification requests per day
  
  

The report describes deployments spanning e-commerce, marketplaces, gaming, dating, adult content, pharmaceuticals, and regulated retail sectors where access controls increasingly intersect with fraud and identity risk. Liminal also highlights Shufti's pricing flexibility, citing a free tier, self-service options, and volume-based enterprise pricing, with liveness included by default.

The full 2026 Liminal Index Report for age verification and age estimation are available via Liminal. To explore Shufti's age assurance features or connect with the team, visit Shufti here.

About Shufti

Shufti is a global identity verification and age assurance company providing real-time KYC, AML, document verification, biometric authentication, deepfake detection, and age assurance to more than 2,000 businesses across 240+ countries and territories.

About Liminal

Liminal is the actionable intelligence company for the Identity, Fraud, and Cybersecurity markets. Through its proprietary Living Graph, Liminal maps the real-time decision logic of these sectors, delivering structured, expert-verified intelligence trusted by Visa, Mastercard, Google, and the world's leading digital identity platforms. Founded in 2022 and headquartered in New York City.

Media Contact
Aroosa Virk
Brand and Communications Manager
partnership@shuftipro.com

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