Discord’s new age verification requirement sucks | usagoldmines.com

I like Discord as a concept. I don’t always like Discord’s policies—most currently, its upcoming worldwide age verification requirement. The approach sucks.

I understand the problem. Unfiltered, the internet is not a safe place for kids. Discord is rightfully attempting to address predators, hazardous content, and other dangers for minors by changing the default user experience to one that’s “teen appropriate.”

But Discord will put adults at risk when this policy rolls out in early March.

To remove stricter filters, age-gating, and reduced access to Discord features, those of legal age must allow a facial scan or upload government ID. But while Discord assures full data safety and privacy—claiming no video selfies will be stored, nor identity documentation held long-term—it already lost images of 70,000 government IDs in October 2025 to hackers, months after first rolling out this policy to the United Kingdom and Australia in April 2025.

Yes, adults can remain on the default teen restrictions to avoid this hazard. Yes, Discord is seemingly already trying to address the concerns, though its media team still had not responded to me by this article’s press time. On Reddit, Discord staff member u/discord_zorkian said “the vast majority of people will never see age verification,” as the system will instead determine adult or teen status through usage patterns—the details of which remain opaque. (Not concerning from a privacy standpoint at all.)

If there’s a miscalibration, then an account owner can go through the formal identification process. u/discord_zorkian also says that Discord will use different identification verification partners than the one that had the data breach.

For me, this additional information still leaves open many questions—and doubts.

PCWorld

Among the biggest: First, we all know any company can suffer data breaches. Larger and larger resources are becoming required to properly secure data, and few businesses have the true scale for that.

Second, we don’t know yet if age verification will be necessary to manage a family group—and if family center settings will remain toothless. Currently, a “child” account can terminate the connection to a “parent” account, which also removes account limitations made by the guardian. If you’re managing your kids’ experience on Discord, you may not have a choice about age verification.

Third, I’m also not convinced that these changes properly protect minors. Content has stronger default limitations—filtering and age-gating automatically blur or block sensitive messages and channels. Verification of legal age is required for access. However, contact isn’t as locked down. For users likely unknown to a teen account, Discord will route their direct messages to a separate inbox, and badge friend requests with a warning. No other filters have been announced at this time, like age restrictions. Discord has also yet to mention any ability for guardians to fully block such requests on behalf of their children.

(And again, if the connection to a parental account can be voluntarily severed by the teen, that doesn’t matter much anyway.)

I agree Discord should take measures to better protect kids on its platform—and frankly, should have done it much faster than this timeline. But many holes still seem to exist in this new framework. For example, how will Discord handle adult accounts that shows a consistent habit of initiating private contact with teen accounts? How will Discord balance verification and privacy so that, say, someone doesn’t create a boatload of “adult” accounts and sell them—but the “no data kept” policy is upheld?

Safety shouldn’t be a zero-sum game, much less a spectacularly messy one. But that’s what Discord’s first big step here feels like. Protect the adults, expose the children. Partially safeguard those teens, leave their elders vulnerable.

This ain’t it. Not yet.