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Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month Comments Drawer Comments Loading comments Getting the conversation ready... * Tech Tech Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow See All Tech * Gaming Gaming Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow See All Gaming * News News Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow See All News Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month Beginning in March, all accounts will have a 'teen-appropriate experience by default.' Beginning in March, all accounts will have a 'teen-appropriate experience by default.' by Stevie Bonifield Stevie Bonifield Stevie Bonifield News Writer Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow See All by Stevie Bonifield Feb 9, 2026, 2:01 PM UTC * * * acastro_STK062_01 acastro_STK062_01 Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Stevie Bonifield Stevie Bonifield Stevie Bonifield Stevie Bonifield Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow See All by Stevie Bonifield is a news writer covering all things consumer tech. Stevie started out at Laptop Mag writing news and reviews on hardware, gaming, and AI. Discord announced on Monday that it's rolling out age verification on its platform globally starting next month, when it will automatically set all users' accounts to a "teen-appropriate" experience unless they demonstrate that they're adults. Users who aren't verified as adults will not be able to access age-restricted servers and channels, won't be able to speak in Discord's livestream-like "stage" channels, and will see content filters for any content Discord detects as graphic or sensitive. They will also get warning prompts for friend requests from potentially unfamiliar users, and DMs from unfamiliar users will be automatically filtered into a separate inbox. Related * Welcome to the 'papers, please' internet * Ready or not, age verification is rolling out across the internet * A nationwide internet age verification plan is sweeping Congress Direct messages and servers that are not age-restricted will continue to function normally, but users won't be able to send messages or view content in an age-restricted server until they complete the age check process, even if it's a server they were part of before age verification rolled out. Savannah Badalich, Discord's global head of product policy, said in an interview with The Verge that those servers will be "obfuscated" with a black screen until the user verifies they're an adult. Users also won't be able to join any new age-restricted servers without verifying their age. Discord asking a user for age verification after opening a restricted server Discord asking a user for age verification to unblur sensitive content * * 1/2Unverified users won't be able to enter age-restricted servers. Image: Discord Discord's global age verification launch is part of a wave of similar moves at other online platforms, driven by an international legal push for age checks and stronger child safety measures. This is not the first time Discord has implemented some form of age verification, either. It initially rolled out age checks for users in the UK and Australia last year, which some users figured out how to circumvent using Death Stranding's photo mode. Badalich says Discord "immediately fixed it after a week," but expects users will continue finding creative ways to try getting around the age checks, adding that Discord will "try to bug bash as much as we possibly can." It's not just teens trying to cheat the system who might attempt to dodge age checks. Adult users could avoid verifying, as well, due to concerns around data privacy, particularly if they don't want to use an ID to verify their age. In October, one of Discord's former third-party vendors suffered a data breach that exposed users' age verification data, including images of government IDs. A government ID might still be required for age verification in its global rollout. According to Discord, to remove the new "teen-by-default" changes and limitations, "users can choose to use facial age estimation or submit a form of identification to [Discord's] vendor partners, with more options coming in the future." The first option uses AI to analyze a user's video selfie, which Discord says never leaves the user's device. If the age group estimate (teen or adult) from the selfie is incorrect, users can appeal it or verify with a photo of an identity document instead. That document will be verified by a third party vendor, but Discord says the images of those documents "are deleted quickly -- in most cases, immediately after age confirmation." A Discord user profile showing a "teen" age group and age verification options Users can view and update their age group from their profile. Image: Discord Badalich also says after the October data breach, Discord "immediately stopped doing any sort of age verification flows with that vendor" and is now using a different third-party vendor. She adds, "We're not doing biometric scanning [or] facial recognition. We're doing facial estimation. The ID is immediately deleted. We do not keep any information around like your name, the city that you live in, if you used a birth certificate or something else, any of that information." However, some users may not have to go through either form of age verification. Discord is also rolling out an age inference model that analyzes metadata like the types of games a user plays, their activity on Discord, and behavioral signals like signs of working hours or the amount of time they spend on Discord. "If we have a high confidence that they are an adult, they will not have to go through the other age verification flows," Badalich says. "A majority of people are not going to see a change in their experience." She goes on to explain that the addition of age assurance will mainly impact adult content: "A majority of people on Discord are not necessarily looking at explicit or graphic content. When we say that, we're really talking about things that are truly adult content [and] age inappropriate for a teen. So, the way that it will work is a majority of people are not going to see a change in their experience." Even so, there's still a risk that some users will leave Discord as a result of the age verification rollout. "We do expect that there will be some sort of hit there, and we are incorporating that into what our planning looks like," Badalich says. "We'll find other ways to bring users back." Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates. * Stevie Bonifield Stevie Bonifield Stevie Bonifield News Writer Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow See All by Stevie Bonifield * Apps Apps Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow See All Apps * Gaming Gaming Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow See All Gaming * News News Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow See All News * PC Gaming PC Gaming Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow See All PC Gaming * Policy Policy Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow See All Policy * Tech Tech Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow See All Tech Most Popular Most Popular 1. Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month 2. Netflix's Warner Bros. merger puts rival streamers in survival mode 3. This whistle fights fascists 4. How I Built the Star Trek control panel of my dreams 5. AI-generated ads dropped the ball at this year's Super Bowl The Verge Daily A free daily digest of the news that matters most. Email (required) [ ] Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. 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