Teenage users have options, but some appear safer than others. We pick the best options.

After Discord users pushed back on ID requirements for age verification, the social platform announced in a blog post on Tuesday that it would implement age verification for teens — but not in the way people expected.

“Discord is introducing a new approach to age assurance, strengthening teen safety without requiring everyone to prove their age,” the company said in an email to CNET. “More than 90% of users won’t be asked to confirm their age. Most will either be placed into an age group automatically or will be able to continue using Discord without confirming their age unless they want to access age-restricted content, spaces, or settings.”

For those who do need to verify, Discord focuses on measuring “age signals” for teens rather than actual IDs, and it tells users it will not receive any direct data about them except their age signal results. The platform will work with a variety of vendors who will examine different types of data to assess a person’s age. Discord says those vendors won’t use any of this data for ad targeting or AI model training.

This follows a Discord-related data breach in 2025, which exposed 70,000 government ID photos of users, among with other information, on a vendor website.

The good news is that young Discord users can now choose how to verify their age, including options that don’t show their faces or IDs. Some of Discord’s options look fairly privacy-friendly, such as the ability to use documentation already in Google Wallet or the Apple App Store to verify age.

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