Discord Rolls Out Revised Age Verification, Promises Privacy Improvements Vs Previous Implementation

Discord is rolling out a revised version of their age verification system, promising privacy improvements over the previous implementation.

Discord's previously announced version of age verification drew criticism on privacy grounds. The previous age verification system would have required facial scans and ID checks in order to have full access to the service.

Your account would be restricted to a teen age group and "age-restricted" content would be blocked, as well as access to "age-restricted" servers.

Discord was working with third-party vendors for the age verification feature.

Discord claimed that 90% of users would not be affected because they don't access age-restricted content anyway.

Back then, Discord promised to use account signals to determine your age without needing to scan your face or ask for your ID:

using the same category of account-level signals: how long your account has existed, whether you have a payment method on file, what types of servers you're in, and general patterns of account activity. It does not read your messages, analyze your conversations, or look at the content you post.

Still, they estimated that about 10% of users would need to verify their age.

They promised to set a "new bar for any partner offering facial age estimation, including that it must be performed entirely on-device, meaning your biometric data never leaves your phone. Persona did not meet that bar."

Still, trusting third-party software with facial scans isn't ideal.

Discord had suffered a data breach of at least 70,000 images of government IDs through its third-party service and support providers, which collected them for age verification.

It had previously canceled its plans due to the backlash from the February announcement.

This new version still promises that 90% of users won't need to verify their age. The age groups are still the same, with an adult and teen age group.

Discord says they've added more ways to confirm your age, including some that don't require an ID or selfie. They are still using the account signals to place you in an age group in a privacy-preserving way. For those in the adult age group, nothing changes. If you get placed in the teen age group, your account will be restricted. There is a new "unconfirmed" age group where some adult content isn't available until they can collect more account signals.

Discord users that still need to verify their age can use a credit card or the Apple App Store or Google Play age range, Google Wallet, or AgeKey to verify their age now. Unfortunately, the ID scan and video selfie options are still offered.

They also say they've fully retired the manual review process that led to the original data breach of IDs back in 2025.

So the main improvements are just more options other than the ID verification and face scan options.