>>28959
Users who aren’t verified as adults will not be able to access age-restricted servers and channels, won’t be able to speak in Discord’s livestream-like “stage” channels, and will see content filters for any content Discord detects as graphic or sensitive. They will also get warning prompts for friend requests from potentially unfamiliar users, and DMs from unfamiliar users will be automatically filtered into a separate inbox.

Discord’s global age verification launch is part of a wave of similar moves at other online platforms, driven by an international legal push for age checks and stronger child safety measures. This is not the first time Discord has implemented some form of age verification, either. It initially rolled out age checks for users in the UK and Australia last year, which some users figured out how to circumvent using Death Stranding’s photo mode. Badalich says Discord “immediately fixed it after a week,” but expects users will continue finding creative ways to try getting around the age checks, adding that Discord will “try to bug bash as much as we possibly can.”

>>28960
The age verification process applies to all devices, including Discord on Xbox and PlayStation 5.

When a user tries to interact with material that Discord flags with its sensitive media filter, such as potentially explicit images, or tries to change their sensitive media filter settings, a pop-up appears that tells them to verify their age before they can continue. Discord provides two ways to verify: a face scan using your device's camera or using a mobile device to scan an ID card, such as a driver's license. The process reportedly takes just a few minutes, and you receive a direct message from Discord once it's finished that tells you which age group you're in.

This system invites privacy concerns, though Discord said in an FAQ section about the new requirement that the data users provide for verification is not stored by Discord or its face-scan vendor. The face scan option is "on-device," which means the vendor doesn't collect or store biometric data. Age verification for Discord is a one-time thing. After the system places a user in a specific age group, that's where they stay until they choose to re-verify. Discord said users can choose to re-verify their age at any time if they believe the system placed them in the incorrect category or, presumably, once they get older and the category no longer applies.

>>28961
The company is also planning to go public this year, according to numerous reports.

But its age verification plan, which would have required either a facial, photo or government ID scan to confirm the claimed age of users, drew near-instant ire from Discord's community.

One user Alastair, or Eret, who hosts a server on the platform with more than 60,000 users, told the BBC simply, "I do not trust them."

Many Discord users were drawn to the platform because it offered people a way to create more private online spaces for discussion.

A Discord server, like the one Alastair hosts, is an invite-only space within the platform where users can chat via text, voice and video.

>>28962

But Discord has also had recent issues with user security sowing distrust.

In October, official ID photos of around 70,000 users that Discord had gathered from a previous age-verification partnership were likely leaked through a cyber-attack.

Discord reiterated on Tuesday that when it eventually does roll out a global age verifications system, no images used in the process will be stored.

Then, over the last week, online researchers found that Persona, another company Discord had partnered with in the UK for age verification, had left thousands of files exposed on the open internet.

Discord was quick to distance itself from Persona, saying the test it had done with that company was limited and now over.

>>28963
The persona thing is related to this

https://fortune.com/2026/02/24/discord-peter-thiel-backed-persona-identity-verification-breach/

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/discord-cuts-ties-peter-thiel-080200136.html?guccounter=1

Nearly 2,500 accessible files were found sitting on a U.S. government-authorized endpoint, researchers said on X. The files showed Persona conducted facial recognition checks against watchlists and screened identities against lists of politically exposed persons.

In addition to verifying a user’s age, researchers found Persona performs 269 distinct verification checks, including screening for “adverse media” across 14 different categories such as terrorism and espionage. It then assigns risk and similarity scores to user information.

And the information was openly available. “We didn’t even have to write or perform a single exploit, the entire architecture was just on the doorstep,” wrote the researchers in their blog, adding they found 53 megabytes of data on a Google Cloud server connected to Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP). The researcher believed it to be infrastructure associated with a government verification system, pointing out the accessible files included evidence of Persona tagging “reports with codenames from active intelligence programs.”

>>28965
Sources on most of the content on this thread

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/discords-new-age-verification-requires-id-or-face-scans-for-some-users/1100-6530915/


https://www.polygon.com/discord-id-verification-facial-face/

https://www.engadget.com/social-media/discord-will-soon-require-age-verification-to-access-adult-content-140000218.html

https://kotaku.com/discord-will-force-you-to-scan-your-face-or-id-to-unlock-all-of-its-features-2000666884

https://9to5mac.com/2026/02/09/discord-will-soon-require-face-scans-or-id-for-all-users-or-restrict-access/

https://www.polygon.com/discord-face-id-requirement-backlash/


https://www.theverge.com/tech/875309/discord-age-verification-global-roll-out

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgv0yg4n9lo

>>28966
TL;DR - obvious data mining platform gives people "free service" for years while operating at a loss. Then they ramp up the datamining just as they're about to go on the stock market and people are too over reliant on the service.

They also said that they're backing out on pushing user verification for a while, but you know they'll be back.