By 2026, developments like this are no longer surprising. Discord’s age verification rollout is part of a broader trend across online platforms, driven by international pressure to strengthen child safety measures. It also isn’t the first time Discord has introduced some form of age verification.
The good news is that users who don’t complete verification will still be able to use Discord, though their accounts will be limited to a “teen-appropriate experience.” According to the announcement, users can choose between facial age estimation or submitting an identity document through Discord’s partners. Discord will also deploy an “age inference model,” a new background system that runs in the background to help determine whether an account belongs to an adult without always requiring explicit verification.
Starting in early March, all new and existing Discord users worldwide will be assigned new default settings that support age-appropriate experiences. These include content filters that cannot be disabled, no access to age-restricted channels, servers, or app commands, warning prompts for friend requests from users they may not know, and restrictions on speaking on stage in servers.
Although the changes are promoted as safety measures, concerns go beyond the right to opt out of this surveillance: Discord has a history of security incidents in which government-issued IDs were exposed. And Discord isn’t alone, this trend raises broader concerns about how securely platforms can store and manage highly sensitive personal data, with no guarantee against future exposure.
Laws like these often push people to find creative ways around them, you might remember users turning to games like Garry’s Mod or Death Stranding to bypass verification. Unfortunately, once such workarounds go viral, platform owners like Discord are likely to notice and tighten security in response.
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