We understand Discord is proceeding with age verification without Persona, but some of the implications in this blog post about the capabilities & features of our platform are patently false. I’m fine if they don’t want to use us. I’m not okay with them publicly saying untrue things about our age assurance technologies to try to shift responsibility away from their own decisions. Doing so further erodes trust. > We’ve set a new bar for any partner offering facial age estimation, including that it must be performed entirely on-device, meaning your biometric data never leaves your phone. Persona did not meet that bar. We offer on-device age verification. We even offered credit-card based age verification for free (their new approach). We made this clear to Discord multiple times. Throughout our partnership, Discord was explicitly looking for a provider who could prevent “fraud/deepfakes/bots/using video game photo mode to pass age check.” We were transparent about the real technological limitations and capabilities of on-device solutions, which I shared elsewhere on this platform. We were upfront that on-device solutions can create a “privacy for only the wealthy” problem where only those with higher-end devices would be able to run the necessary models. We understood that they had experienced recent bypasses that could cause regulatory scrutiny. Many of us here at Persona are huge fans of Discord and some have been users since 2015. We were eager and willing to partner with them to address all these challenges.

Our new Miami startup is now operating! “OpenStore” is now recruiting engineers and a lead designer.