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Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month

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Re: Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month

#931

Post by f001 »

PsycoRobot wrote: post #926

It took so long to have a decision like that from Discord. I use Discord everyday and I know that a lot of teenagers use it and I think a decision like that can help to keep safe these teenagers from the internet. When last year Discord introduced that AI face scanning I thought that it was a serious problem for the security of our data but if, as they say, they remove all of the data of the ID extimation.. why not?

It’s hard to trust a company when when they’ve already demonstrated that they [can’t be trusted](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/discord-faces-ba...). And i’m sure there will be an argument of “but this will make it more likely that they’ll be safe about it to not have a repeat”, which will likely be true for a while. Then cost-cutting offloading to a third party that promises to not keep the data, or a new feature will come in that needs the photos, or a misconfiguration will happen where things that should be deleted won’t be, and we’ll be in the same boat again.

The only safe data is that which does not exist.

Re: Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month

#934

Post by spragl »

vasco wrote: post #823
spragl wrote: post #810

I have mentioned this before, but age verification can be solved by hash chains. They can prove age without compromising privacy. It is crazy that the solutions Discord goes for are IDs and selfies. It definitely gives the impression that there are shady ulterior motives. Hash chains are simple. If they were adopted, Discord would clearly be in bad faith taking the steps that they do now. If you search you will find…

If the input is "give ID", what the software claims to do is almost meaningless since you cannot prove that software was running. What do I care that someone can tell me they built a privacy-first way of validating IDs/age if I cannot be sure that is the software they are running? They can just as easily save the ID to disk and return "all good" for all I know.

No, the solution does not require that.

It requires that Bob proves posession of a private key, that only he has ever had. That private key could be generated specifically for the commitment that he got from Alice.

Re: Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month

#935

Post by dcchambers »

As an adult that interacts only with other adults in good faith, it's easy to look at this and feel outraged.

But there is a very real and dangerous situation where children and adolescents are using Discord with zero guardrails, constantly interacting with adults - many of whom are predators. This is happening every day. Millions of children around the world "meet people" playing games online, take the conversation to Discord, and then get brought into a very dark world online that their brains are simply not ready for.[^1]

I don't like the idea of blanket face scans/ID scans with that data stored in perpetuity - but age verification of some kind is a must IMO.

[1]: https://www.afterbabel.com/p/its-not-just-a-game-anymore

Re: Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month

#936

Post by erfgh »

anon_cow1111 wrote: post #239

It should go without saying but, *CANCEL YOUR NITRO SUBSCRIPTION NOW IF YOU'RE PAYING FOR ONE* (for whatever reason) This was just announced today and a flood of canceled payments within the next 24 hours are the easiest way to send a message. And also tell people on the servers you're on to do the same. It's not like they give you anything of real value for that money.

I bet they expect the canceled payments. Management will push through.

Re: Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month

#937

Post by kcb »

dcchambers wrote: post #935

As an adult that interacts only with other adults in good faith, it's easy to look at this and feel outraged. But there is a very real and dangerous situation where children and adolescents are using Discord with zero guardrails, constantly interacting with adults - many of whom are predators. This is happening every day. Millions of children around the world "meet people" playing games online, take the conversation…

Discord has parental controls. There's a myriad of services out there that restrict and monitor phone usage for kids. Use them and lock their phone and discord accounts down to nothing.

Restricting adults because parents decide to give little Timmy unrestricted access to technology is stupid.

Re: Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month

#938

Post by 71bw »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #725
tabbott wrote: post #430

I'm biased, as I lead the Zulip project. But I think this is a reasonable place for me to post some thoughts. Given current events in the USA, I can't emphasize enough how worried one should be about the fact that a few companies like Discord, Google (Gmail), and Meta have databases with access to the private conversations of hundreds of millions of people with their closest friends and family members, linked up with…

Hi Tim. For pricing, it would seem that large, public-facing, Discord-style organizations would have to go with the free plan to avoid the pricing being prohibitive. Think something like the new Limewire community on Discord which has 2 million members. Or am I missing something about what a 'user' is considered in terms of being billable or not? On a related note, I'm gonna check out Zulip for PortableApps.com. Any…

Just dropping in on a completely unrelated note to thank you for developing PortableApps - as a kid with no UAC access almost two decades ago now it helped me immensely to develop my interest in IT :-)

Re: Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month

#939

Post by spragl »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #836
spragl wrote: post #810

I have mentioned this before, but age verification can be solved by hash chains. They can prove age without compromising privacy. It is crazy that the solutions Discord goes for are IDs and selfies. It definitely gives the impression that there are shady ulterior motives. Hash chains are simple. If they were adopted, Discord would clearly be in bad faith taking the steps that they do now. If you search you will find…

Even easier, just get tokens that carry no other information from ones government, and the government runs an API, that for a given token tells whether that token is valid. Can tokens be stolen? Maybe. Can your face be stolen? Today yes.

Hash-chains allows the solution to be token-less. You no longer need those per transaction information leaking API calls. You also avoid dependency on a single provider.

The communication in connection with a transaction would only go between the identity owner (Bob) and the provider (Cycle shop).

Re: Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month

#940

Post by zaxioms »

spragl wrote: post #810

I have mentioned this before, but age verification can be solved by hash chains. They can prove age without compromising privacy. It is crazy that the solutions Discord goes for are IDs and selfies. It definitely gives the impression that there are shady ulterior motives. Hash chains are simple. If they were adopted, Discord would clearly be in bad faith taking the steps that they do now. If you search you will find…

If you wanted to implement this in real life, who plays the role of Alice?
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