Earlier this month, Discord said that they’d be rolling out a global age verification system to which everyone and their mother responded by saying “thank you,” except they didn’t say thank. A little bit later on, they also shared word of an experiment being run in relation to this new system and policy that involved an identity detection firm backed by a fund directed by Palantir chairman Peter Thiel called Persona, which apparently potentially stored any ID documentation you submitted to them for up to seven days. Now, after more and more pushback, Discord have put out a statement that still probably doesn’t say what you wish it would.

For starters, the statement said that the chat service “should have provided more detail about our intentions and how the process works,” and acknowledged that the age verification system didn’t land particularly very well, though the buck stopped short of actually apologising. In fact, the post goes on to explain that Discord still plan to go ahead with introducing this system, but again stressed that “90% of users will never need to verify their age to continue using Discord exactly as they do today.”

They explain, “This is powered in part by our internal safety systems, which can already make an age determination for many adult users without any user action. We’ll publish the methodology behind this in a technical blog post before we launch globally.” For the remaining 10%, you will apparently be given options “designed to tell us only your age and never your identity.” These include more verification options like doing so by submitting credit card options, though more alternatives will also be added.

It’s also important to note that Discord say the test they ran with Persona was only “limited,” and that after conducting it they’ve opted to not work with them after all, saying that “all data was deleted after completing verification. We’ve set a new bar for any partner offering facial age estimation, including that it must be performed entirely on-device, meaning your biometric data never leaves your phone. Persona did not meet that bar.” Discord also committed to “full transparency on vendors” it works with, though ultimately, none of this is really the point, as people mostly just don’t want to have to submit any kind of sensitive details at all just to talk about a bit of smut and the like with their friends.

On top of all of this, the global rollout of Discord’s age verification system has been delayed to the latter half of 2026, so you’ve still got a while to mull over it all. What a polava.