On Monday, Discord announced that they will soon set all user accounts to be a "teen-appropriate" experience. The only way to demonstrate that the user is an adult that can access age-restricted servers and channels will be to submit a scan of their face or photo ID.
In March, Discord will begin rolling out a global age verification process. By default, all users will be set to a "teen-appropriate" experience and it will be up to individual users to verify that they are adults. Those who are not verified as adults will be restricted or limited to various Discord functionality. Accounts that are not verified as adults will not:
- Be able to access or join age-restricted servers and channels
- Be able to speak in Discord's streaming "stage" channels within Community servers
- Be able to see content Discord claims is graphic/sensitive without a content filter
Discord had to previously implement age verification for users in the UK and Australia in 2025. Discord's age verification methods were quickly circumvented thanks to the photo mode in Death Stranding. For a brief moment, everyone who wanted to access age restricted content became Norman Reedus. Discord supposedly fixed that specific workaround within a week, but users will more than likely find another easy workaround once this system is rolled out globally in March.
In October 2025, a third-party vendor that worked with Discord on age verification suffered a data breach. This breach exposed many Discord users' age verification information, including the scans of their photo IDs that were submitted.
There is also the obvious concern about international users submitting a photo ID to a company, such as Discord, that is based in the United States. Even those living within the US may not be too keen on uploading their ID to a company that has already started to make extensive use of AI, which as we all know, is never used for nefarious purposes.
Speaking of AI, AI will be used as one of the options for age verification. Users will upload a video selfie where AI will try to estimate if the user is a teen or an adult. Discord claims that the video selfie will "never leave a user's device." If the AI cannot determine the age based on the video, then they will instead be able to verify with a photograph of identification documents, such as a government issued photo ID. This ID upload will need to be verified by a third-party vendor, albeit a different vendor than the one that suffered a data breach in October. Discord claims that the identification documents will be "deleted quickly" and in most cases deleted "immediately after age confirmation."
There will also be a group of users that may never have to verify their age at all. According to Discord, they're also rolling out an "age inference model" to determine a user's age. This is a "system that runs in the background to help determine whether an account belongs to an adult, without always requiring users to verify their age." According to The Verge, this system will apparently look at things like the types of games a user plays and behavioral signals such as "signs of working hours" or amount of time spent on Discord.
(Images also via The Verge)
