Discord adopts facial recognition in child safety crackdown
Messaging platform Discord has announced a global rollout of enhanced safety measures for teenage users, including facial age verification, as part of a wider industry push to protect minors online.
Beginning in early March, teen-appropriate settings will automatically apply to all users, while adults will need to verify their age to relax restrictions such as content filters and direct messaging limits.
The San Francisco-based platform said it will use facial age estimation technology and identity verification through third-party vendors to determine users’ ages, alongside background tracking software designed to flag potential age mismatches.
According to Discord’s head of product policy, Savannah Badalich, the measures prioritise safety without compromising privacy, noting that video selfies used for age estimation remain on users’ devices and identity documents are deleted shortly after verification.
The company previously tested the system in Britain and Australia before expanding it globally.
Discord’s move follows similar actions by major tech platforms amid increasing regulatory pressure.
Gaming platform Roblox recently introduced mandatory facial age verification for chat access, while Meta, owner of Instagram and Facebook, has deployed AI-based age detection and introduced restricted Teen Accounts, removing hundreds of thousands of underage users in Australia alone.
TikTok has also imposed screen time limits for under-18 users. The industry-wide shift comes as governments, particularly in the United States and Australia, intensify efforts to regulate social media’s impact on children, including ongoing legal challenges over alleged platform addiction among minors.
