Discord attempted to reassure users on Tuesday about its plans to implement age-verification technology, saying most will not need to scan their faces or upload government IDs.
Under its new age-assurance system, expected in March, users will only be required to verify when accessing 18+ servers and channels, or when attempting to modify certain safety settings.
“As part of our ongoing commitment to teen safety and wellbeing, we decided to evolve how the platform helps keep users safer by introducing teen-by-default, a teen-appropriate default experience for all new and existing users worldwide,” Savannah Badalich, the Global Head of Product Policy at Discord, told Decrypt.
“We use age prediction to determine, with high confidence, when a user is an adult,” it wrote. “This allows many adults to access age-appropriate features without completing an explicit age check.”
Discord said most adult users will be assigned to an age group using internal age-prediction models based on account signals.
Only when those systems cannot determine adulthood with high confidence will users be asked to complete additional verification through third-party partners.
When verification is required, Discord said facial age estimation runs entirely on a user’s device and is not transmitted to the company or its vendors. Government IDs are used only to confirm age and are deleted afterward. Discord said it receives only a user’s age and does not associate identity documents with user accounts.
Age verification on social media is gaining global momentum.
Discord’s Badalich said a specific legal requirement had no bearing on the timing of the policy change.
“This was a part of our proactive, ongoing commitment to teen safety and wellbeing,” she said. “The global teen-by-default experience is not driven by any single regulation.”
Privacy advocacy groups, however, say those assurances ask users to trust the company without a way to verify the claims independently.
Bernstein said the issue goes beyond Discord and reflects broader limits on user control online.
“This shows that often, as consumers, we don’t have a lot of agency over our own information if we want to engage online, which all of us do or have to do in some scenarios,” she said.
