A system and method for verifying proper possession of a medication is disclosed. A reader device scans a code printed on the medication to extract an embedded serial number and captures an image of the face of the person in possession of the medication. A first server queries a prescription database, which retrieves facial characteristic data associated with the embedded serial number. A determination is made if the retrieved facial characteristic data matches facial characteristic data extracted from the captured image. The match information is displayed on the reader device.