Discord, the popular online communication platform for gamers, said Wednesday it will delay its global age verification rollout after receiving user criticism.
Earlier this month, Discord announced a phased rollout for new and existing users that would implement video selfies to determine a person's age group. Users could also submit a form of identification to their vendor partners.
The rollout was supposed to begin in early March and would give underage users a "teen-appropriate experience" that included updated communication settings, content filtering and restricted access to age-gated spaces.
Criticism was immediate, with many users pointing to an October security breach of a third-party provider Discord used that exposed government ID photos for thousands of users, The Associated Press reported.
The platform’s chief technology officer responded to the backlash in an update Tuesday, saying that Discord "missed the mark" and that the rollout is being delayed to the second half of 2026.
"Let me be upfront: we knew this rollout was going to be controversial. Any time you introduce something that touches identity and verification, people are going to have strong feelings. Rightfully so. In hindsight, we should have provided more detail about our intentions and how the process works," Discord CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy wrote in a Wednesday blog post.
Vishnevskiy said the platform will not require face scans or ID uploads from everyone, and that over 90% of users will never need to verify their age to continue using it.
"If you’re among the less than 10% of users who do need to verify, we’ll give you options, designed to tell us only your age and never your identity," Vishnevskiy said.
If a user chooses not to verify their age, they can keep their account, servers, friends list, messages, and voice chat, but won't be able to access age-restricted content or change certain safety settings.
Vishnevskiy also addressed last year's security breach, saying that Discord no longer works with that vendor.
"We’ve made mistakes. I won’t pretend we haven’t. And I know that being a bigger company now means our mistakes have bigger consequences and erode trust faster. I don’t expect one blog post to fix that," Vishnevskiy said.
"We’re listening. We’ll get this right. And when we ship, you’ll be able to see for yourselves," he added.
