Discord has relaunched its age verification system, abandoning the mandatory video-selfie and government ID checks that sparked outrage earlier this year.

Co-founder and chief technology officer Stanislav Vishnevskiy announced the revised system in a blog post on September 22, 2026. Instead of demanding documents from everyone, Discord now estimates users’ ages from signals such as account creation date and server participation.

The platform sorts accounts into three groups: adult (18 and over), teen (13 to 17) with extra protections, and unconfirmed accounts that cannot access age-restricted content until they verify. Discord says more than 90 percent of active users will need no action at all.

Those who must verify can choose from privacy-friendlier options, including credit card authorisation, app-store data or the AgeKey identity service. The overhaul marks a retreat from February’s plan, which users attacked as a privacy invasion.

The original plan, announced in February, would have forced all users to prove their age with a video selfie or government ID, prompting a wave of protest across the platform. Users warned the data could be hacked or misused, and some threatened to leave Discord altogether. The company paused the rollout and spent months redesigning it before this week’s relaunch.