Swiggy and Zomato will start home delivering alcohol in Ranchi today. While Swiggy’s service is already live according to a company press release, Zomato’s service will go live later today, a company spokesperson told MediaNama. Zomato said it will extend the service to 7 other cities in Jharkhand over the next couple of days, and Swiggy said it will cover “other major cities in the state launching within a week”. Swiggy users in Ranchi will be able order alcohol from a new “Wine Shops” category in the app. We’ve asked Zomato about the updates it's making to its app. Both the platforms said that they have obtained necessary licences to carry out this service. Interestingly, Swiggy's CEO, Sriharsha Majety, a few days ago, while laying off 1,100 employees, had said that Swiggy will invest in “high-confidence efforts” such as grocery delivery and "other service offerings", and has already re-aligned some employees from other businesses into these initiatives. Swiggy is using face recognition for age verification: Swiggy is relying on facial recognition to ensure that it doesn’t end up delivering alcohol to someone who isn’t old enough for its consumption. The app will require a “mandatory age verification” and “user authentication” to complete deliveries. The app will require users to upload a valid government ID followed by an image of their face, and will then carry out age verification using an “AI-powered system”. We have asked Swiggy about what it will do with the government IDs and facial data of users, including if it…
