Discord to make age verification mandatory in March

Don't want to send the company your ID and specifics? You'll be locked to a teen account.

Messaging service Discord has today announced it will make age verification checks mandatory in early March. Those who do not submit a selfie and personal identification will be age-gated to a teen account — and we explain below why that’s not such a bad thing.

In early March, “Discord will implement its age inference model, a new system that runs in the background to help determine whether an account belongs to an adult, without always requiring users to verify their age,” the company said. “Some users may be asked to use multiple methods if more information is needed to assign an age group.”

Verification methods will include video selfies and the submission of identification documents.

What if I don’t want to upload my ID to Discord?

I’m not telling you what to do, here, but I will tell you that I’m not about to comply with this age verification process. Why? ID submitted to Discord as part of similar age verification processes was hacked and leaked as recently as October of last year.

If you choose not to comply with Discord’s request, you’ll be age-limited. As to what that actually means is below:

• Content Filters: Discord users will need to be age-assured as adults in order to unblur sensitive content [such as images] or turn off the setting.
• Age-gated Spaces – Only users who are age-assured as adults will be able to access age-restricted channels, servers, and app commands. 
• Message Request Inbox: Direct messages from people a user may not know are routed to a separate inbox by default, and access to modify this setting is limited to age-assured adult users.
• Friend Request Alerts: People will receive warning prompts for friend requests from users they may not know.
• Stage Restrictions: Only age-assured adults may speak on stage in servers.

None of the above seems all that important to me, so I’ll keep my ID in my wallet, thanks.

What do you make of Discord’s age verification efforts? Let us know in the comments area, below.