Discord Delays Global Age Verification After Complaints From Users

Discord has pushed back its plan to roll out global age verification, saying it will now delay the changes until the second half of 2026 after facing heavy criticism from users.

The platform had planned to introduce new checks as early as March, including facial scans or government ID uploads for some users. But after weeks of complaints, co-founder and chief technology officer Stanislav Vishnevskiy admitted that the company mishandled the announcement.

“We knew this rollout was going to be controversial,” Vishnevskiy wrote in a blog post. He acknowledged the confusion caused by the initial messaging, adding: “In hindsight, we should have provided more detail about our intentions and how the process works.”

In another post, he addressed fears that everyone would be forced to upload sensitive documents. “The way this landed, many of you walked away thinking we’re requiring face scans and ID uploads from everyone just to use Discord. That’s not what’s happening, but the fact that so many people believe it tells us we failed at our most basic job: clearly explaining what we’re doing and why,” he wrote.

Discord says less than 10% of their users would actually need to verify their age. Most accounts are already assessed through an internal system that looks at signals like account age, payment methods, server activity and general usage patterns. Vishnevskiy stressed that the system “does not read your messages, analyse your conversations, or look at the content you post.”

The company says it will publish a technical breakdown of how that age estimation system works before launching globally.

Concerns about privacy have been amplified by past security problems. Last year, around 70,000 user ID images collected through a third-party verification provider were exposed in a cyber incident. More recently, researchers found that files linked to Persona, a company Discord tested in the UK for age checks, were left accessible online.

Discord said it ended its “limited test” with Persona in January and decided not to continue working with the vendor because it failed to meet its privacy standards. The company has now introduced a stricter rule: “We’ve also set a new requirement: any partner offering facial age estimation must perform it entirely on-device. If they don’t meet that bar, we won’t work with them.”

Vishnevskiy also addressed broader distrust of tech firms collecting personal data. “On top of that, many of you are worried that this is just another big tech company finding new ways to collect your personal data. That we're creating a problem to justify invasive solutions,” he wrote. “I get that skepticism. It's earned, not just toward us, but toward the entire tech industry. But that's not what we're doing.”

He conceded the company had stumbled. “We've made mistakes. I won't pretend we haven't. And I know that being a bigger company now means our mistakes have bigger consequences and erode trust faster. I don't expect one blog post to fix that,” he said. “Trust is earned through actions over time: shipping the things we promised, owning it when we miss the mark, and giving you real control over your own experience.”

Before launching worldwide, Discord says it will expand verification choices including credit card checks, publicly list all verification vendors and their data practices, introduce a dedicated “spoiler channel” option as an alternative to age-gated spaces, and include age assurance data in its transparency reports.

The platform, which reports about 200 million monthly users, says it still plans to comply with age verification laws in places like the UK, Australia and Brazil where it is required, but for now, the global rollout is on hold.