Upcoming AI-based age verification in Discord slammed

Discord has been criticized over its decision to introduce AI-based age verification for viewing adult content that requires the submission of video selfies and government IDs following an October third-party breach that compromised 70,000 Discord users' government IDs, reports Ars Technica.

Even though Discord noted the off-device checking of government IDs, the retention of selfie data on users' devices, and their deletion after age estimation, such a verification check process which will be launched in phases beginning next month was regarded by users as expanding the popular instant messaging and VoIP social platform's attack surface.

Discord has also sought to allay fears by collaborating with widely used age-check service provider k-ID, while committing to continued security and privacy audits of third-party systems. However, users expressed skepticism over the firm's privacy policy, which cited Privately as the source of its facial age estimation tool. Both k-ID and Privately have emphasized that they do not store data obtained from age checks.