Discord rolls out its revised age verification policy

It will offer several privacy-focused options for users who aren’t automatically confirmed as adults.

Many social media platforms have been applying new age verification rules in response to growing interest in limiting access for minors. Discord had planned to enact a policy this year that would have required either a facial age estimation or an ID scan for users who couldn't have their status as adults confirmed by its internal tools. The company announced in February that it would be delaying those changes in response to concerns about privacy and the collection of personal data involved in both of those verification methods. Today, the service shared details about how it will begin checking ages while accounting for that community feedback.

Starting this week, Discord will automatically sort users into either the Adult or Teen age group based on markers such as how long the account has existed, the servers they're in and their general activity levels. The blog post explicitly stated that Discord will not be accessing messages or calls to determine an age estimate, and the individual's age group will not be displayed on their profile or shared with other server members. Discord users will be able to check which group they've been sorted into under the Account Status section of the User Settings menu. For an expected 90 percent of platform's audience, no further action will need to be taken if they are placed in the correct group.

If a user is put into the Unconfirmed age category, they will have several options for verifying that they are older than 18. Depending on regional restrictions, those choices might include confirmation via credit card, Apple App Store, Google Play Store, Google Wallet or the AgeKey credential service, as well as more common tools such as an ID scan or a video selfie. To further allay privacy concerns, Discord said it will require any third-party age assurance vendor to permanently delete a user's information once their service is completed, as well as requiring any facial age estimation to run completely on the user's device.

For the users placed in the Teen Age Group, there will be a trio of restrictions placed on their accounts. First, any messages from non-friends will be sent to the message requests inbox, and Discord will give an alert before accepting a friend request from a user who doesn't have mutual friends or shared membership in a small server. Second, the user will not be able to view some content across Discord. The age-gated material includes images that have been tagged as sensitive by the platform's content filters, in addition to any servers, channels and bot commands that are restricted to only adults. The final limitation is that a teen's full profile details and activity will only be accessible to friends and to members of smaller servers. Accounts in the Unconfirmed category will be placed under the first two restrictions until the user confirms their age.