SAN FRANCISCO, September 22 — Discord has announced a major rollout of age-check technology and sweeping changes to how the service works for younger users, a move that will reshape access to servers, features and content for millions of people. The San Francisco-based voice, video and text chat platform, founded in 2015 by Jason Citron and Stanislav Vishnevskiy, said the changes are designed to verify users’ ages and apply age-appropriate experiences, particularly for teenagers.
Discord counts more than 150 million monthly active users, according to company figures, and is widely used by gamers, students and online communities. Age verification is a sensitive subject for Discord.
The service has faced scrutiny from regulators, parents and safety advocates over minors’ exposure to harmful content and interactions. The shift is part of a broader trend among technology companies working to comply with a patchwork of global regulations.
Building on the 2024 teen safety policy
Discord previously introduced a teen safety policy in 2024 that included default settings for new teen accounts, such as filtering unwanted messages and limiting direct messages from unknown users. The newly announced age-check rollout would expand on those efforts. The company has not disclosed the exact technical method it will use for age verification.
Industry practice includes government ID checks, facial age estimation, and credit card or mobile carrier verification. Discord’s user base includes a large number of teenagers.
The company has said that users aged 13 to 17 make up a significant portion of its audience, though it has not recently published exact figures. The platform’s minimum age is 13, in line with the US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which was enacted in 1998 and requires parental consent for data collection from children under 13. Discord has previously stated that it removes accounts belonging to underage users when discovered.
Regulators push, platforms respond
The announcement follows similar moves by other platforms. In 2024, Meta began testing facial age-estimation technology on Instagram to verify users’ ages, and in 2025 several US states, including Utah and Arkansas, enacted laws requiring age verification for social media accounts. In recent years, the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act 2023 and various US state laws have pushed online platforms to implement stronger age-assurance measures.
The European Union’s Digital Services Act, which fully took effect in 2024, requires very large online platforms to assess and mitigate risks to minors. Discord is not currently designated as a very large online platform under the DSA, but it has faced questions from EU regulators.
In the United States, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) has been debated in Congress but has not become law as of 2025. Discord’s changes could affect how millions of users access servers, features and content, and may require users to provide additional personal information. The company has said it will share more details in the coming months.
The rollout is expected to begin in select regions before expanding globally, though Discord has not provided a specific timeline. The move is likely to draw attention from privacy advocates, who warn that age verification can lead to data collection and security risks, as well as from child safety groups that have long called for stronger protections.
Discord has emphasized that it will work to protect user privacy while implementing age checks. Discord has not announced a specific date for the rollout’s completion, and the full impact on users remains to be seen. Watch this space for the technical method Discord settles on and the first regions to go live.
