Discord has started conducting age verification checks in Australia, much to the frustration of local gamers.
A popular messaging and voice chat app primarily used while playing video games, Discord’s local age verification rollout coincides with Australia’s youth social media ban set to begin in December. A screenshot shared to the r/Australia subreddit shows the app requesting either a video selfie or a form of photo ID to proceed.
According to Discord’s age verification support page, “age assurance is currently part of an ongoing experiment across various regions.” It also claims that video selfies and IDs are not stored permanently by the platform.
“Images of your identity documents and ID match selfies are deleted directly after your age group is confirmed, and the video selfie used for facial age estimation never leaves your device,” a statement on Discord’s website said.
Discord previously rolled out age verification checks for users in the UK to comply with the country’s Online Safety Act. However, savvy users found workarounds, including the use of Death Stranding 2‘s photo mode.
The eSafety Commissioner recently released the guidelines for Australia’s youth social media ban. As part of the guidelines, age verification is not considered mandatory for social media platforms to comply with the minimum age requirements.
Providers should avoid unreasonable practices that risk over-blocking access or infringing on the rights of Australians. For example, requiring all existing Australian account holders to prove their age using an age verification system may be unreasonable and is not necessary for compliance – particularly in circumstances where the provider could use existing data to infer with reasonable confidence that certain end-users are over 16.
Social Media Minimum Age Regulatory Guidance, p. 28.
Previously, a report into a government-backed age assurance trial found that age estimation, a technique separate from age verification that infers users’ ages, had a “margin of error” involved.
Not all Australian Discord users have been required to verify their ages yet. Regardless, the immediate reaction suggests there will be plenty of discord between Australians and Discord in the future.
