An unmanned cigarette vending machine stands in a store near Yongsan Station in Seoul, Monday. Korea Times photo by Jung Da-hyun

Concerns are mounting over how easy it is for adolescents to purchase cigarettes via unmanned vending machines, which do not possess sufficiently strong age verification systems.

Near Itaewon Station in Yongsan District, Seoul, there is an unmanned store that sells e-cigarette cartridges with just a single vending machine inside.

To open the glass automatic door at the entrance, individuals scan their ID card or passport in a scanner out front, which grants access upon verifying the individual as an adult.

Once inside, another certification procedure is required before purchasing from the vending machine.

Given the high number of foreign visitors to Itaewon, the store offers information services in English.

Despite the two-step ID verification procedure, there is no system in place to confirm that the carrier of the ID card or passport scanned is the same as the person buying the cigarettes, thereby enabling teenagers to easily gain access simply by using someone else's identification.

At another unmanned vending machine near Yongsan Station, there is no door — and thus no door check — making it even easier to access the vending machine directly.

Furthermore, the small marking indicating the age restriction to those under 19 is only attached to the vending machine, making it difficult to discern that the colorfully lit vending machine sells tobacco products.

"The convenience is great for me, but it's too accessible, which makes me worry that teenagers could easily use it," said a nearby coffee shop manager surnamed Han, who is a smoker.

The exposure of teenagers to cigarettes through unmanned stores remains unguarded due to inadequate age authentication systems at entrances and poor management.

An identification scanner is seen installed on the wall of a store in the same space as an unmanned cigarette vending machine near Itaewon Station in Yongsan District, Seoul, Monday. Korea Times photo by Jung Da-hyun

According to the Korea Health Promotion Institute (KHEPI), there were 62 unmanned cigarette stores in the country as of November last year. The stores were concentrated in large cities in Seoul, Busan and Gyeonggi Province, with many of them situated in areas that young people frequent.

Of these unmanned stores, approximately 83.9 percent, or 52 stores, had their doors open at all times without adult authentication devices. Additionally, nearly 63 percent did not display age restriction signs on their doors. Age authentication devices were found to be entirely non-functional in some places.

Furthermore, in a survey conducted by KHEPI, it was revealed that out of 19 unmanned tobacco stores in Seoul, five were situated within close proximity of educational environment protection zones around schools.

The proliferation of unmanned stores has increased significantly in Korea, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic, as non-face-to-face transactions become the norm. The types of stores now include ice cream shops, laundromats and even cigarette vendors.

According to Statistics Korea, the number of unmanned stores reached 6,323 as of March last year, marking a 12-fold increase from 499 in 2020.

However, regulatory measures for these rapidly increasing unmanned stores remain insufficient.

Lee Eun-hee, a professor at Inha University's Department of Consumer Science, questioned allowing unmanned sales of cigarettes.

"With the absence of a stringent system for store openings, managing them has become increasingly challenging. One alternative solution could be to prohibit unmanned sales of certain items like cigarettes," Lee said.

Similarly, Kwon Il-nam, a professor at the Department of Youth Education and Leadership at Myongji University, highlights the need for stringent identification systems, such as utilizing fingerprint recognition, rather than solely blaming owners of the stores and teenagers.

"Unmanned stores are vulnerable to illegal activities and can easily become a management blind spot," he said.

"Enhancing educational efforts aimed at maintaining proper conduct and upholding legal standards in unmanned stores, based on trust, would be more constructive than outright discouraging their use among teenagers."