Today, Discord announced new safety features designed to help safeguard younger users. This is a noble undertaking. Unfortunately, the methods the company plans to use have raised some serious privacy concerns and sparked backlash on online platforms like Reddit.
How Discord’s age verification will work
Goodbye, privacy
Once these updated safety measures roll out, all Discord accounts will be updated to the new default settings. Essentially, every account will default to a teen profile that filters out certain content until your age is verified. The new safety defaults will include:
- Content filters that blur sensitive content.
- Age-gated spaces that only allow access to adults.
- A separate inbox for direct messages from people you don’t know.
- Warning prompts for friend requests from other users you may not know.
- Restrictions on the ability to speak on stage in servers.
In order to remove these restrictions, you’ll need to verify your age. There will be two options available: facial age estimation (using a video selfie) or submitting identification to a Discord vendor partner. The company claims more options will be coming in the future.
Discord also says it’ll use what it’s calling an “age inference model.” This is a new system that runs in the background and tries to guess whether your account belongs to an adult. The advantage of this is that you may not need to use one of the age verification methods mentioned above. Obviously, the disadvantage is that your activity is being scanned to determine your age.
What security measures are in place?
Discord’s track record doesn’t inspire confidence
For its part, Discord says it’ll take your privacy seriously. The company outlined the following privacy measures:
- Verified on-device: Discord says the selfies you take for verification never leave your device.
- Quick removal of personal data: The company claims any documents submitted to vendor partners are deleted “quickly.” That’s a vague word, but Discord says in most cases the documents should be deleted immediately after age confirmation.
- One-time verification: Discord claims that you’ll generally only need to verify once, and then the platform will adapt to your verified age group. You might be asked to use more than one method if Discord feels more info is needed, however.
- Private status: Discord says your age verification status is never visible to other users.
These privacy measures are good to see, because the company doesn’t have the best track record in this area. Discord’s vendors have been involved in several data breaches over the years, and the company appears to be using third-party vendors as part of this age verification process. This doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
The most recent incident occurred toward the end of 2025 and, concerningly, included government-issued IDs used for age verification. This sort of thing is why we don’t like providing IDs online.
Users are not happy
Discord users took to Reddit to voice their frustrations. Some stated flatly that they would not be participating.
Others indicated they’d be moving to other platforms, like TeamSpeak (which is great for several reasons).
Unfortunately, if you’re not a fan of these changes, moving elsewhere looks like the only option. Discord says these new systems will roll out globally in early March.
