‘We missed the mark’: Discord is delaying global age verification until it’s improved the process

The co-founder of Discord says the company “missed the mark” with its rollout of global age verification, and has delayed it until the process works better.

Last year Discord added a new age verification system for some users in the UK and Australia that requires them to scan their face or ID to access sensitive material.

It then announced earlier this month that it would be rolling out age verification globally in early March, which would require users to confirm their age before viewing certain Discord servers or channels.

Now, in a new blog post, co-founder and chief technology officer Stanislav Vishnevskiy says the company is now delaying is global age verification rollout until the second half of 2026 as it addresses user concerns.

Vishnevskiy noted that one of the main reasons for the backlash was that not everyone realised that age verification would only be required for Discord servers tagged as adults-only, as opposed to the entire service.

“The way this landed, many of you walked away thinking we’re requiring face scans and ID uploads from everyone just to use Discord,” he wrote. “That’s not what’s happening, but the fact that so many people believe it tells us we failed at our most basic job – clearly explaining what we’re doing and why. That’s on us.”

Vishnevskiy stressed that “over 90% of users will never need to verify their age to continue using Discord exactly as they do today,” noting that many of those who do need to verify their age will be automatically verified based on certain flags on their account.

“Most users never access age-restricted content or change their default safety settings,” he explained. “For those who do, we have an internal system that works to accurately determine your age. Discord already runs safety systems that catch spam rings, prevent raids, and detect coordinated abuse, powered by our rules engine (which we just open sourced as Osprey for other platforms to use).

“Age determination works the same way, using the same category of account-level signals – how long your account has existed, whether you have a payment method on file, what types of servers you’re in, and general patterns of account activity.

“It does not read your messages, analyze your conversations, or look at the content you post. We know ‘trust us’ isn’t enough here, which is why we’ll publish the methodology before global launch.”

For those users who will need to verify their age, Vishnevskiy says Discord plans to give them options designed to “tell us only your age and never your identity”.

He also noted that Discord is no longer working with the age verification company Persona. “We’ve been evaluating multiple vendors to offer a range of verification options people are comfortable with,” he wrote. “One of those evaluations was with Persona, a company used by platforms like Roblox and Reddit.

“In January, we ran a limited test with Persona in the UK only. After completing the test, we decided not to move forward with them, and consistent with our privacy policy, all data was deleted after completing verification.

“We’ve set a new bar for any partner offering facial age estimation, including that it must be performed entirely on-device, meaning your biometric data never leaves your phone. Persona did not meet that bar.”

When the global rollout takes place later this year, Vishnevskiy says Discord will offer multiple verification companies, all of whom will be documented on the Discord website, including their data handling practices, allowing users to “make an informed decision about which option you’re most comfortable with”.

For users who choose not to verify their age, he added: “If you choose not to verify, here’s exactly what happens – you keep your account, your servers, your friends list, your DMs, and voice chat. The only thing that changes is you won’t be able to access age-restricted content or change certain default safety settings designed to protect teens. Nothing else about your Discord experience changes.”

Although Discord is delaying its global age verification rollout, the process will continue to currently apply to users in the UK, Australia and Brazil, where Discord is legally required to make such checks.