Discord Downplays Timing, Impact of Its New Age-Verification Policy

Discord tried to reassure customers on Tuesday about its plans to implement age-verification know-how, saying most won’t must scan their faces or add authorities IDs.

Below its new age-assurance system, anticipated in March, customers will solely be required to confirm when accessing 18+ servers and channels, or when making an attempt to change sure security settings.

“As a part of our ongoing dedication to teen security and wellbeing, we determined to evolve how the platform helps preserve customers safer by introducing teen-by-default, a teen-appropriate default expertise for all new and current customers worldwide,” Savannah Badalich, the World Head of Product Coverage at Discord, instructed Decrypt.

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In a Tuesday publish on X, the official Discord account mentioned the “overwhelming majority” of customers can proceed utilizing the platform with out ever being requested to substantiate their age.

“We use age prediction to find out, with excessive confidence, when a person is an grownup,” it wrote. “This enables many adults to entry age-appropriate options with out finishing an express age examine.”

The transfer follows on-line backlash and customers looking for options, with some reviews estimating a surge of greater than 10,000% in on-line searches in February in comparison with the month prior.

Discord mentioned most grownup customers shall be assigned to an age group utilizing inside age-prediction fashions based mostly on account indicators.

Solely when these programs can not decide maturity with excessive confidence will customers be requested to finish extra verification by way of third-party companions.

When verification is required, Discord mentioned facial age estimation runs completely on a person’s system and isn’t transmitted to the corporate or its distributors. Authorities IDs are used solely to substantiate age and are deleted afterward. Discord mentioned it receives solely a person’s age and doesn’t affiliate id paperwork with person accounts.

Age verification on social media is gaining world momentum.

Earlier this month, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov known as out Spanish regulators on X, saying such measures have been “pushing harmful new rules” that threaten web freedoms.

These sentiments have been echoed by the Digital Frontier Basis in January, which mentioned 2025 was the yr “age verification went from a fringe coverage experiment to a sweeping actuality throughout the U.S.”

In December, Australia’s Labor authorities banned using social media for under-16s, citing considerations over little one security. That initiative has largely failed, with teenagers reporting measures to simply circumvent age-restricted controls.

Discord’s Badalich mentioned a selected authorized requirement had no bearing on the timing of the coverage change.

“This was part of our proactive, ongoing dedication to teen security and wellbeing,” she mentioned. “The worldwide teen-by-default expertise isn’t pushed by any single regulation.”

Privateness advocacy teams, nevertheless, say these assurances ask customers to belief the corporate with out a technique to confirm the claims independently.

“They’re asking people to belief,” Suzanne Bernstein, counsel on the non-profit Digital Privateness Info Middle, instructed Decrypt. “Many firms have already got all this info, so there’s typically a false selection by way of what info we’ve got management over, our privateness.

Bernstein mentioned the problem goes past Discord and displays broader limits on person management on-line.

“This reveals that usually, as customers, we don’t have plenty of company over our personal info if we wish to have interaction on-line, which all of us do or need to do in some situations,” she mentioned.