Discord
The messaging app Discord says it will start requiring people to verify their age with identity documents, face scans, even in regions where age checking is not legally required. The change is planned for next month.
Several states in the United States now legally require social media platforms and other websites to block adult content or potentially adult content, forcing websites and apps implement age verification checks or risk being banned. The United Kingdom and France also now have similar laws, under the Online Safety Act 2023 and SREN , respectively, and Australia has a teen social media ban enforced with similar age verification methods. These age verification checks force everyone to give up personal information, not just children and teens, and they come with numerous safety and privacy issues that have not been solved.
Discord already has age verification systems in regions where it's legally required, such as the UK and Australia, but now the company wants to verify everyone who uses the service. It will start as a phased global rollout in early March 2026, and switch to a "teen-appropriate experience by default" unless they use the age verification process.
The company said in a blog post, "Age assurance is the foundation of this new experience and is designed to respect Discord users’ privacy and choice. Discord users can choose to use facial age estimation or submit a form of identification to its vendor partners, with more options coming in the future. Additionally, Discord will implement its age inference model, a new system that runs in the background to help determine whether an account belongs to an adult, without always requiring users to verify their age. Some users may be asked to use multiple methods if more information is needed to assign an age group."
The age verification methods include face video recordings that "never leave a user's device," as well as identity documents that are "deleted quickly." It's important to note that one of Discord's contracted companies for age verifications was hacked in 2025 , leading to "approximately 70,000 users that may have had government ID photos exposed."
It's one thing for Discord to verify ages in countries and states where it's legally required. It's another thing entirely for Discord to comply in advance, using age verification methods that are not fully reliable and may case additional privacy violations. Here's hoping the company decides to backpedal, but that seems unlikely at this point.
Source: Discord
