Chat and community tool Discord has announced that that it will be rolling out age verification for all new and existing users from March, with any account unable to prove its age being limited to a “teen-appropriate” experience. It follows Roblox’s recent move to require all users complete age verification to use the platform’s chat features.
Discord age verification will be carried out by facial age estimation or the submission of verification to “vendor partners”. The move follows a rollout of similar restrictions to users in the UK and Australia following recent legislation, which saw users successfully evade verification by using Death Stranding’s photo mode and the subsequent leaking of the ID and personal information of 70,000 users after one of the firm’s partners was hacked.
In today’s announcement Discord said that the use of video selfies for age verification would never leave a user’s device, and “identity documents submitted to our vendor partners are deleted quickly— in most cases, immediately after age confirmation”.
Discord’s global head of product policy Savannah Badalich told The Verge that the company expects users will find ways to try getting around the age checks, but it will “try to bug bash as much as we possibly can.”
The following restrictions will apply to any account that has not been successfully age-verified:
- Content Filters: Discord users will need to be age-assured as adults in order to unblur sensitive content or turn off the setting.
- Age-gated Spaces – Only users who are age-assured as adults will be able to access age-restricted channels, servers, and app commands.
- Message Request Inbox: Direct messages from people a user may not know are routed to a separate inbox by default, and access to modify this setting is limited to age-assured adult users.
- Friend Request Alerts: People will receive warning prompts for friend requests from users they may not know.
- Stage Restrictions: Only age-assured adults may speak on stage in servers.
Discord has become a key channel for marketing and communication for the games industry, with many indie devs and publishers advocating for it as a way to build buzz pre-release. The platform, which claims over 200 million registered users, is preparing for a public listing.
