Discord cuts ties with identity verification software, Persona

Ah man, just tried to submit this with the title "Discord cuts ties with Peter Thiel-backed SaaS once code tied to US spying found" which is slightly better I think, and fits exactly within 80 characters :)

I think the whole "after its code was found tied to U.S. surveillance efforts" part is new and wasn't known before, so feels important to have in the title too. Although most of us probably assumed it was true before too.

So does this mean Discord is scrapping its new face verification requirement for users, or imply they’re no longer using this 3rd party service (Persona) to do it? The article wasn’t too clear on that.

This does not cure the face scanning nonsense. I deleted and am not going back.

>Nearly 2,500 accessible files were found sitting on a U.S. government-authorized endpoint, researchers pointed out on X. The files showed Persona conducted facial recognition checks against watchlists and screened users against lists of politically exposed persons.

>Persona performs 269 distinct verification checks, including screening for “adverse media”

im sure everyone assumed this, but its good to know it.

>And the information was openly available. “We didn’t even have to write or perform a single exploit, the entire architecture was just on the doorstep,”

it is kind of scary how often these types of situations are only found out because of wild incompetence. you have to imagine that most similar situations dont suffer from the same incompetence (and thus arent known)

>“At Discord, protecting the privacy and security of our users is a top priority.

please, i wish companies would just stop saying this obvious lie. you know that you dont care. we know that you dont care.

>It’s dystopian that we want people to facedox themselves to everyone to be real online.

.... says the ceo of the company that you have to send your face ("facedox", if you will) to

> According to Discord, only a small number of users were part of this test, in which any information submitted could be stored for up to seven days before it would be deleted.

Ah yes, we only store it for 7 days. During those 7 days, we pass it to Persona, and who knows how long they keep it!