Discord’s age-verification era is upon us, despite community backlash

image via TechCrunch
image via TechCrunch

“Age assurance draws strong opinions and skepticism, especially when it involves sharing biometric information or a form of ID,” Discord CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy wrote in a blog post, published Tuesday. “At the same time, age assurance laws are expanding, and since my last post we’ve had to launch age assurance in other regions, including in Brazil and in Texas.” However, Vishnevskiy says more than 90% of Discord users won’t have to verify their age. He explains that Discord will instead use existing account data to detect “signals,” like account tenure (how long an account has existed), device and activity data, and other usage patterns, to determine whether a user belongs in the adult, teen, or unconfirmed age group.

https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/22/discords-age-verification-era-is-upon-us-despite-community-backlash/

Kids can bypass some age checks with a drawn-on mustache

image via theregister.com
image via theregister.com

A full 46 percent of children even said that age checks were easy to bypass, while just 17 percent said that they were difficult to fool. The methods kids use to fool age gates vary, but most are pretty simple: There's the classic use of a video game character to fool video selfie systems, while in other instances, children reported just entering a fake birthday or using someone else's ID card when that was required. The report even cites cases of children drawing a mustache on their faces to fool age detection filters. Seriously.

https://www.theregister.com/2026/05/04/uk_online_safety_act_age_checks_subvert/?td=rt-3a

Discord delays age verification plans after user outcry

image via bbc.com
image via bbc.com

Discord stressed it would meet any specific legal obligations it has for age verification of users, and that age verification will be part of the platform in the future. However, the platform said it was now developing "more verification options" for users that would not require facial or ID scans. One such option in development is credit card verification.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgv0yg4n9lo