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Starting Wednesday, Discord, the community messaging platform, will roll out age verification measures<\/a> to all users.<\/p>\n The rollout comes after the company initially delayed<\/a> its age verification plans in February due to backlash from users concerned that biometric scans and ID checks could jeopardize their privacy<\/a>. Those concerns weren\u2019t unfounded; last year, a third-party vendor that works with Discord was breached<\/a>, potentially exposing the data of 70,000 users\u2019 data, including government ID photos and selfies used for identity verification.<\/p>\n \u201cAge assurance draws strong opinions and skepticism, especially when it involves sharing biometric information or a form of ID,\u201d Discord CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy wrote in a blog post<\/a>, published Tuesday. \u201cAt the same time, age assurance laws are expanding, and since my last post we\u2019ve had to launch age assurance in other regions, including in Brazil and in Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n However, Vishnevskiy says more than 90% of Discord users won\u2019t have to verify their age. He explains that Discord will instead use existing account data to detect \u201csignals,\u201d like account tenure (how long an account has existed), device and activity data, and other usage patterns, to determine whether a user belongs in the adult, teen, or unconfirmed age group.<\/p>\n Discord says that it doesn\u2019t estimate users\u2019 ages based on message content, profile data, or demographic attributes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe way a typical 15-year-old uses Discord (including how many communities they\u2019re a part of and how they interact with others) looks different in aggregate from how a typical 30-year-old uses Discord,\u201d the company wrote in a separate, technical<\/a> blog post, also published Tuesday. \u201cOur [machine learning] model has learned these patterns to predict whether a given account likely belongs to an adult or a teen.\u201d<\/p>\n This doesn\u2019t mean that Discord is collecting new user data. It\u2019s standard for social media companies to retain this kind of data on their customers, even though it might feel unsettling to see it spelled out so overtly.<\/p>\n Because local laws have required Discord to use age assurance technology in certain regions due to local law, the company was able to train its model on reliably confirmed data linking user behavior to age.<\/p>\n If Discord is not confident that a user is an adult, that user can still prove their age without a biometric or ID scan. They can appeal by sharing a credit card or age group data from their Apple App Store or Google Play Store account.<\/p>\n For confirmed adults, nothing about the platform will change. Teens accounts, however, will automatically be blocked from accessing age-restricted servers or channels. Message requests from people who aren\u2019t their friends will go to a separate message requests inbox, and teens will get alerts when accepting friend requests from someone they don\u2019t share mutual friends with.<\/p>\n As governments around the world continue passing age verification requirements in an attempt to protect children online, experts warn<\/a> that these age checks can create a host of new privacy and security issues. That leaves platforms like Discord with a difficult choice: comply or risk sanctions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n