Users hate it, but age-check tech is coming. Here's how it works.

Last month, Discord quickly backpedaled after it announced that an age-verification system would roll out globally.

Discord’s reversal followed a widespread user backlash, which also intensified scrutiny of the platform’s age-check partners. Suddenly, these often-overlooked players in the “age-assurance” ecosystem had to defend their tech or risk losing major contracts.

The whole saga shone a harsh spotlight on the current problems with age-verification tech—and on the technical solutions aiming to make the whole process both secure and private.

Discordant

Discord users had reason for suspicion after a data breach last fall in which a former age-check partner leaked the government IDs of 70,000 users. Though Discord claimed that, in the future, most users could verify their age without any data leaving their devices, trust had eroded.

Discord’s initial announcement also left questions unanswered, such as “What companies will actually be handling the age check process?” Users had to dig to learn that the technology was built by Privately SA, which isn’t listed as a partner on Discord’s site but does work with a Discord partner named k-ID. (Users had previously criticized Discord for removing a disclaimer about an undisclosed age-check vendor called Persona, which Discord quickly dropped after a backlash during a brief test in the United Kingdom.)

But the bigger concern was that IDs would still be collected whenever facial age estimation—an approach that can be unreliable—failed. Most IDs would be deleted immediately, Discord claimed, but skeptical users had heard that line before. Many worried that collecting more IDs could make the company’s partners a more attractive target for hackers.

As some users debated the likelihood of another breach, others began hacking away at some of the technology Discord was using, including attempting to breach systems built by Persona and Privately. Their attacks, which the companies told Ars were intense and spanned days, were largely unsuccessful, but they put Discord’s age-check partners on high alert.