Discord postpones age verification rollout amid criticism, promises transparency

Discord has postponed its controversial age verification policy until the second half of 2026 following intense user backlash centered on privacy concerns. The announcement came in a Tuesday blog post from Stanislav Vishnevskiy, Discord’s Chief Technology Officer and co-founder, who acknowledged the company “missed the mark” with its initial approach.

“Many of you are worried that this is just another Big Tech company finding new ways to collect your personal data,” Vishnevskiy wrote. “I get that skepticism. It’s earned, not just toward us, but toward the entire tech industry. But that’s not what we’re doing.”

The messaging platform, which boasts more than 200 million active users, will continue to meet existing legal obligations for age verification while rethinking its global expansion strategy. The company had originally announced in early February that it would implement an age verification system in March requiring face scanning or ID uploads for users it couldn’t determine were adults.

This announcement triggered immediate criticism from the Discord community, with many users pointing to a recent security breach involving a third-party provider that exposed government ID photos of up to 70,000 Discord users. The incident significantly undermined user confidence in the platform’s ability to protect sensitive personal data.

Vishnevskiy addressed the security breach directly, acknowledging it added to user skepticism, but emphasized that Discord no longer works with that vendor and has implemented rigorous standards for its partners.

“Every vendor we work with goes through a security and privacy review before integration,” he explained. “That includes contractual limits on data use, and strict retention and deletion requirements. Information submitted for age verification is stored only for the minimum time necessary, which in most cases means it’s deleted immediately.”

The company also found itself embroiled in controversy regarding its relationship with Persona, an identity verification service. Vishnevskiy stated Discord had conducted a limited test with Persona in the UK in January, but the service did not meet Discord’s requirement that facial age estimation “must be performed entirely on-device, meaning your biometric data never leaves your phone.”

The relationship drew additional scrutiny because Persona is backed by venture capital firm Founders Fund, run by Palantir Technologies co-founder Peter Thiel. Both Thiel and Palantir have faced criticism for government surveillance partnerships, including Palantir’s recent agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In response, Persona’s co-founder and CEO Rick Song disputed Discord’s characterization, stating on LinkedIn: “I’m fine if they don’t want to use us. I’m not okay with them publicly saying untrue things about our age assurance technologies to try to shift responsibility away from their own decisions. Doing so further erodes trust.”

Despite the controversy, Vishnevskiy emphasized that for “90%+ of users, nothing changes.” Discord can determine most users’ ages through account-level signals such as account age, payment methods on file, server membership patterns, and general account activity. He stressed that the company does not read messages, analyze conversations, or examine account content to estimate ages.

For users whose ages cannot be determined automatically, Discord is now developing additional verification options beyond face scanning and ID uploads, including credit card verification. The company plans to “complete and expand” these alternatives before implementing the revised system.

Users who choose not to verify their age will maintain access to their accounts, servers, friends lists, direct messages, and voice chat capabilities. However, they will be unable to access age-restricted content or modify certain default safety settings designed to protect teenagers.

Moving forward, Discord has committed to transparency by promising to publish detailed information about its automatic age determination systems and documenting every verification vendor and their practices on its website.