On Feb. 24, the popular communication platform Discord announced it would be delaying their global age assurance update to the latter half of the year. The age verification update, originally announced on Feb. 9, would require certain users to either record a video of themselves or take a scan of a government photo ID to complete the process. In case the user was deemed to be below the minimum required age to use the platform in their specific country, a ban would be issued to said user’s account.
The usual age requirement is 13 in most countries, including Canada, while other nations require up to 16 years of age. However, the amount of backlash the controversial announcement received prompted Discord to adjust their course by reworking the details of the update and its ultimate goal of providing an age-appropriate experience that caters to every user.
Discord’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Stanislav Vishnevskiy mentioned in an official blog post that the update was meant as a means to keep Discord’s user experience the same while making sure everyone was getting adequate engagement for their age. Vishnevskiy clarified that they learned valuable lessons from the Oct. 3, 2025 incident, where an estimated 70,000 people’s sensitive information, like IDs, were leaked due to a data breach of the third party provider that stored that information.
This incident generated distrust in the company’s handling of IDs and how the information was being kept and utilized. Vishnevskiy assured through an official blog post that Discord was no longer collaborating with that service provider company whose information database became compromised, confirming they had cut the ties to that provider.
Vishnevskiy reflected that the company should have done a better job at relaying the information properly to their user base to let them know what were their intentions behind the controversial update, and that it would have been better to be clearer about how the process works. The CTO revealed that most of the users, accounting for more than 90 per cent, would not see any difference in the use of the platform. It would only be for the remaining less than 10 per cent where further age verification action will be required.
Vishnevskiy disclosed more information on how the system to identify which accounts need verification works, explaining that an internal Large Language Model (LLM) AI system identifies specific signals that indicate the age of the user, such as the antiquity of the account, if there is a registered payment method associated with the profile, server activity, and general patterns of activity.
The system, which is named “DERE,” short for Discord’s Entity-Relationship Embeddings relies on user relations and interactions with the platform to assess the estimated age of the user without reading their personal messages.
For the users that need to be verified, Discord is currently working on more alternative and transparent ways of handling their sensitive information. Users that chose not to verify will be allowed to keep their account and stay a part of the servers they are inside of, with the only difference being that they would not be able to access age-restricted content.
Discord is currently compliant with countries that require age verification processes for their platform to be used, such as in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Brazil. For most Discord users worldwide, there should not be a prompt asking for age verification and user experience should remain unaffected.
