Earlier this year, Discord announced plans to introduce age verification on its platform to comply with global and regional legislation aimed at protecting minors online. However, the company later postponed the rollout following significant community backlash, particularly over privacy concerns. Now, the platform has announced that it will begin rolling out its revised age assurance system.
The rollout will take place over the course of this week, although Discord notes that it may take a few days for the system to reach individual accounts. In its latest blog post, company CTO and co-founder Stanislav Vishnevskiy said the system will automatically place users into one of three age groups: Adult (18+), Teen (13–17), or Unconfirmed. Users can check their status under the Account Status section in the User Settings menu.
According to Vishnevskiy, more than 90% of users will not need to manually confirm their age, as Discord will estimate their age group using various account signals. These include how long an account has existed, the communities, servers, and games it is connected to, as well as general activity levels. Discord says it does not examine users’ messages, calls, or other content to determine their age group. If a user is placed under this category, then no further action is needed.
Users who remain in the Unconfirmed age group can continue using Discord, although access to age-restricted content and settings will be limited until they confirm they are adults. Depending on their region and device, users can do so through several methods, including credit card verification, age-range sharing via the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, Google Wallet, or the AgeKey credential service. Alternatively, they can submit an ID scan or a video selfie to confirm their age.
To address privacy concerns, Discord says third-party age assurance vendors must permanently delete users’ submitted information once the verification process is complete. The company also requires facial age estimation to be performed entirely on-device, meaning users’ biometric data will not leave their devices.
Discord will introduce three additional safeguards for teen users. Firstly, messages from non-friends will be directed to the Message Requests inbox, while the platform will display a warning before users accept friend requests from people they do not share mutual friends or a small server with. Secondly, teens will be restricted from viewing age-gated content, including images flagged as sensitive by Discord’s content filters, as well as servers, channels, and bot commands reserved for adults.
And lastly, their full profile details and activity will only be visible to friends and members of smaller servers they belong to. It’s worth pointing out that if your account is under the unconfirmed group, the first two rules will apply to your account.
(Source: Discord [Newsroom])
