Discord delays global age verification rollout, ends Persona partnership

Discord is delaying its global age verification rollout until the second half of 2026 after drawing widespread criticism. CEO Stanislav Vishnevskiy acknowledged the company had "missed the mark" and said Discord has ended its partnership with identity verification vendor Persona, whose financial ties to Peter Thiel intensified the backlash.

Vishnevskiy said the company will revise its approach to address privacy concerns by providing greater transparency and alternative verification options. He added that Discord will publish a technical blog post explaining its automated age determination systems and reiterated that over 90% of users should never need to verify their age to continue using the service as they do today.

Discord committed to documenting vendor practices, requiring any partner offering facial age estimation to perform it entirely on-device, and completing security and privacy reviews to prevent a repeat of a 2024 breach at an ID verification provider that exposed the personal information of up to 70,000 users.

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