disagreement, Popular platform For gamers to connect online, it has postponed its controversial age verification policy after receiving quick backlash from users with concerns about their privacy.
The system’s global launch has been postponed to the second half of 2026, Stanislav Vishnevsky, Discord’s chief technology officer and co-founder, wrote on Tuesday. Blog post Admitting that the company “missed the mark.”
“Many of you are concerned that this is just another big tech company finding new ways to collect your personal data,” Vishnevsky wrote. “And that we are creating a problem to justify invasive solutions.” “I understand that skepticism. It’s an acquired skepticism, not just of us, but of the entire tech industry. But that’s not what we do.”
Discord, which it says has more than 200 million active users, will continue to meet its specific legal obligations related to verifying the age of users, but the global expansion of age verification will only come after changes are made to the initial policy it established in early February, the company said.
the The company announced Earlier this month, it will roll out an age verification policy in March that will include facial scans or requests to upload an ID for users it can’t determine are adults. This quickly sparked outrage from users. Many pointed to A Recent security breach A third-party provider’s Discord company worked with exposed government ID photos of up to 70,000 Discord users.
Vishnevskiy referred to the security breach in the blog post, writing that he understands that this incident has increased users’ suspicions, but stressed that the company no longer works with this vendor and has strict standards for its partners.
“Every vendor we work with undergoes a security and privacy review prior to integration,” he wrote. “This includes contractual restrictions on data use, and strict retention and deletion requirements. Information provided for age verification is only stored for the minimum amount of time necessary, which in most cases means it is deleted immediately. If the seller is unsuccessful, we do not work with them.”
One vendor that didn’t meet the mark was Persona, an identity verification service. Discord only conducted limited testing with Persona in the UK in January, Vishnevskiy said. The company was unable to meet Discord’s standard for facial age estimation, which states that the estimation “must be performed entirely on-device, meaning your biometric data never leaves your phone,” Vishnevskiy wrote.
The company distanced itself from Persona after that relationship became established as well Online criticism topic. Personal is backed by a venture capital firm Founders Fundwhich he runs Palantir Technologies Co-founder Peter Thiel. Thiel and Palantir are often criticized for the company’s partnerships with the government for surveillance purposes, with Palantir recently signing an agreement with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement To simplify the process of identifying and deporting people targeted by the agency.
The backlash to the original policy and even the revised version came even though Vishnevsky wrote that for “90%+ of users, nothing changes.”
Discord can proactively determine the ages of the vast majority of users by looking at account-level signals. These include how long the account has been in existence, whether there is a payment method on file, the types of servers the user is using and general patterns of account activity, Vishnevsky wrote. He stressed that the company does not read messages, analyze conversations, or look at account content to estimate users’ ages.
For the minority of users whose age Discord can’t determine, the company is now working to offer more options beyond facial scanning and ID requesting, including credit card verification. The company will “complete and expand” alternative options before rolling out the new system.
Users who choose not to verify their age will keep their accounts, servers, friends list, direct messages and voice chats, Vishnevsky wrote, but they will not be able to access age-restricted content or change some of the default security settings designed to protect teens.
Discord promised users that it would publish a detailed post explaining how automatic age determination systems work and would document each verification vendor and their practices on its website.