Discord Is Testing Incode for Age Verification, and the Privacy Concerns Are Legitimate
Discord has quietly begun testing Incode as a new age verification provider, replacing its previous vendor for some users. The company says face scans are processed on-device where possible, IDs and selfies are deleted after age confirmation, and Discord only receives an age result, not your identity. But the move still raises important privacy questions around biometric verification, third-party trust, and the growing trend of mandatory age checks online, especially after the massive Persona breach linked to Discord user data back in 2025
Discord Is Testing Incode for Age Verification, and the Privacy Concerns Are Legitimate | The CyberSec Guru
Discord is running a limited trial with Incode for facial age estimation and ID scanning. Here is what the vendor actually does, what are the privacy concernsThe CyberSec Guru
sudoer777
in reply to UnLocoPoco • • •UnLocoPoco
in reply to sudoer777 • • •Coyote
in reply to UnLocoPoco • • •sudoer777
in reply to Coyote • • •comrade_twisty
in reply to sudoer777 • • •I stopped and will immediately stop using all services that require face scans, ids, phone number or qr-captchas.
If they want to kill their product they can be my guest.
FineCoatMummy
in reply to comrade_twisty • • •Same.
The question tho is, how many will? If it's 50%, they killed their product. If it's 0.1%, then their product is fine, while you, me, and all us 0.1% are excluded from more and more of the online world. This won't stop with Discord.
I guess the % will be somewhere between those levels. Where exactly? IDK.
GMac
in reply to sudoer777 • • •Independent code review, analysis, security audit and activity verification might change my mind but at this point I have no incentive to invest effort into verifying matrix is safe after my concern radar has pinged.
tekato
in reply to GMac • • •GMac
in reply to tekato • • •Governments use palantir so not a benchmark reference for avoiding spyware.
Like i said, red flag and lack of motivation to act enough to verify either way. Ymmv
sudoer777
in reply to tekato • • •Cryptographic Issues in Matrix’s Rust Library Vodozemac - Dhole Moments
Privacy Guides Communitytekato
in reply to sudoer777 • • •procapra
in reply to sudoer777 • • •sudoer777
in reply to procapra • • •dropdrip
in reply to GMac • • •Matrix's origin is Israel's intelligence community. One could argue the authors are rebels, being insiders themselves, who've begun to fight back against the surveillance state that they intimately know. That's a naive and foolish thing to think. The project's design is awful from a 'privacy' perspective, with the design specifically allowing third-parties to silently 'intercept' users' data--all whilst still being 'E2EE'. It's a feature. That's the amusing thing about its absolutely shit design, but regardless of design choices, encryption has always been a lagging component of the program.
The cynic might observe that the whole thing was proposed with foresight as to create a compromised leader ready to be adopted by organizations that felt they needed a higher degree of security. Matrix is a good solution, or so government bureaucrats are told.
Let Tel Aviv inside.
Zizzy
in reply to sudoer777 • • •Encrypt-Keeper
in reply to sudoer777 • • •Fluxer - A chat app that puts you first
FluxerSolrac
in reply to Encrypt-Keeper • • •mnemonicmonkeys
in reply to Solrac • • •Solrac
in reply to mnemonicmonkeys • • •sudoer777
in reply to mnemonicmonkeys • • •Kindof like Helix plugin system, Forgejo federation, CoMaps live traffic, etc. I'd rather use something that works right now and not have to wait like 5 years
0xDREADBEEF
in reply to mnemonicmonkeys • • •Manalith
in reply to sudoer777 • • •Been working on deciding where to move to, not sure if I can get my people to come with but as it stands
Fluxer - E2EE is iffy at the moment from what I've seen, federation not yet a thing
Matrix - I don't know of a client that allows audio screenshares which is important when sites keep removing the watchparty features
MOVIM is entirely text based as far as I can tell
mnemonicmonkeys
in reply to Manalith • • •What are you talking about? One of its main features is multi-stream video calls, which most other XMPP clients don't handle
NewNewAugustEast
in reply to Manalith • • •I assume E2EE is end to end encryption?
Curious why you care that much. On discord it's all on their servers anyways, so it already doesn't matter.
If you had to you could self host and set up e2ee for the connection if you wanted to.
spiderhamster
in reply to Manalith • • •If you use Element web with a chrome-based browser you can share a tab playing a video from the same browser. I use Helium to connect to matrix and my Jellyfin server to stream movies regularly. Within the last few months they've added the ability to adjust stream volume as well.
warm
in reply to sudoer777 • • •When Fluxer gets federation, I really think it will be a great drop-in for Discord. It's very familiar.
Matrix really isn't a good replacement for Discord. I wish forums were still the thing though, I hate threads in my chat apps.
It_is_gaslighting
in reply to UnLocoPoco • • •NGC2346
in reply to UnLocoPoco • • •As much as i hate this, CSAM sharing accounts are a real problem, and they keep making more and more.
I wonder what else could be used to counter this ? Device IMEI auth? Im sure we can come up with better than ID verification, which will ultimately make me leave the platform, not because i have something to hide, but because the precedent it sets is dangerous and WILL lead to leaks and breaches.
Meatwagon
in reply to NGC2346 • • •mnemonicmonkeys
in reply to Meatwagon • • •aurelar
in reply to UnLocoPoco • • •JamesBoeing737MAX
in reply to aurelar • • •Ryo Succubus
in reply to UnLocoPoco • • •PerfectDark
in reply to Ryo Succubus • • •Ryo Succubus
in reply to PerfectDark • • •manuallybreathing
in reply to UnLocoPoco • • •airikr
in reply to UnLocoPoco • • •How can Discord users be 100% sure that Discord will delete their very private data after being verified? Where is the source code for that so we can verify it?
Oh. Wait. Discord is closed sourced...