TheRetroArcade
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Joined: Feb 2026
Discord promises greater transparency and more verification options.
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After drawing widespread criticism with the announcement of a new global age assurance policy earlier this month, Discord is now delaying the rollout of its age verification changes until the second half of 2026. In a blog post acknowledging that the company had "missed the mark," Discord co-creator and CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy said it's revising its age verification strategy to address users' privacy concerns by providing greater transparency and offering alternative verification options.
Additionally, Vishnevskiy noted that Discord ended its "limited test" with identity verification vendor Persona in January. While the test ended prior to Discord's announcement of its global age assurance plans, Persona's financial ties to Palantir founder Peter Thiel contributed to the fears circulating throughout the Discord user base about the privacy and surveillance risks of new age verification measures.
"On top of that, many of you are worried that this is just another big tech company finding new ways to collect your personal data. That we're creating a problem to justify invasive solutions," Vishnevskiy. "I get that skepticism. It's earned, not just toward us, but toward the entire tech industry. But that's not what we're doing."
Admitting that "it isn't realistic" to ask users to take Discord at its word, Vishnevskiy said the company is making an effort to provide "more detail about our intentions and how the process works." As a sign of that effort, he said Discord will be publishing a technical blog post about its own automated age determination systems, which he reiterated—as Discord previously had—should mean that "over 90% of users will never need to verify their age to continue using Discord exactly as they do today."
Additionally, Vishnevskiy said Discord is committing to offering "full transparency on vendors" it partners with for age verification processing, "including their data handling practices." Each vendor, he said, undergoes a security and privacy review to prevent a repeat of the 2024 security breach at an ID verification provider that exposed the personal information of up to 70,000 Discord users.
Following its "limited test" with Persona, Vishnevskiy said Discord didn't pursue a further partnership with the vendor as it failed to meet Discord's privacy policies, which requires that age verification vendors ensure that any age estimation takes place entirely on the user's device and doesn't transmit data elsewhere.
Vishnevskiy said that Persona, which ...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?
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Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
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From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.
Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.
Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.
Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.
Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!
After drawing widespread criticism with the announcement of a new global age assurance policy earlier this month, Discord is now delaying the rollout of its age verification changes until the second half of 2026. In a blog post acknowledging that the company had "missed the mark," Discord co-creator and CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy said it's revising its age verification strategy to address users' privacy concerns by providing greater transparency and offering alternative verification options.
Additionally, Vishnevskiy noted that Discord ended its "limited test" with identity verification vendor Persona in January. While the test ended prior to Discord's announcement of its global age assurance plans, Persona's financial ties to Palantir founder Peter Thiel contributed to the fears circulating throughout the Discord user base about the privacy and surveillance risks of new age verification measures.
"On top of that, many of you are worried that this is just another big tech company finding new ways to collect your personal data. That we're creating a problem to justify invasive solutions," Vishnevskiy. "I get that skepticism. It's earned, not just toward us, but toward the entire tech industry. But that's not what we're doing."
Admitting that "it isn't realistic" to ask users to take Discord at its word, Vishnevskiy said the company is making an effort to provide "more detail about our intentions and how the process works." As a sign of that effort, he said Discord will be publishing a technical blog post about its own automated age determination systems, which he reiterated—as Discord previously had—should mean that "over 90% of users will never need to verify their age to continue using Discord exactly as they do today."
Additionally, Vishnevskiy said Discord is committing to offering "full transparency on vendors" it partners with for age verification processing, "including their data handling practices." Each vendor, he said, undergoes a security and privacy review to prevent a repeat of the 2024 security breach at an ID verification provider that exposed the personal information of up to 70,000 Discord users.
Following its "limited test" with Persona, Vishnevskiy said Discord didn't pursue a further partnership with the vendor as it failed to meet Discord's privacy policies, which requires that age verification vendors ensure that any age estimation takes place entirely on the user's device and doesn't transmit data elsewhere.
Vishnevskiy said that Persona, which ...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?