February 16, 2026
Age-check or spy-check?
UK Discord users were part of a Peter Thiel-linked data collection experiment
Face scans, “seven days” storage and Palantir chatter have UK Discord users yelling nope
TLDR: Discord’s UK age check used Persona to hold IDs for up to seven days in a Thiel-linked “experiment,” and an FAQ note appeared then vanished. Commenters split between privacy panic, Palantir jokes, and political dunking, with demands to name-check Palantir and eye-rolls that “everything is Thiel-touched.”
Discord quietly told UK users their age-check data could sit with Persona for up to seven days in an “experiment,” and the internet did what it does best: freaked out, memed it, and argued. Screenshots flew, Discord tweaked its FAQ (then it vanished—hello, Wayback), and everyone yelled about face scans and mystery storage windows.
The twist? Persona is funded by Founders Fund, co-founded by Peter Thiel (who also chairs Palantir). Cue the chorus: one commenter joked that “almost everything is linked to Peter Thiel’s dark magic company.” Others demanded headlines namecheck Palantir outright, while political dunkers cheered the optics: if surveillance creeps you out now, remember who cheered it on. Privacy hawks dubbed it “age-gate turned spy-gate,” and the “seven days” detail sparked horror-movie riffs—think The Ring voice whispering “seven days” over your selfie.
Not everyone is clutching pearls. A few shrugged that in 2026, everything traces back to Thiel somehow, so save the outrage for real abuses. Meanwhile, skeptics grilled Discord for the flip-flop: earlier promises said IDs get deleted “quickly,” often immediately; now UK users are a test group. For context: the age check uses face videos and a machine-learning model, and rolled out in the UK and Australia ahead of a global launch. No, Palantir isn’t running this—but the Thiel adjacency is all the internet needed to light the fuse.
Key Points
- •Discord confirmed a partnership with Persona for a UK-specific “experiment” in its global age verification rollout.
- •Under this UK experiment, Persona may store submitted user information for up to seven days.
- •Discord previously stated that vendors delete identity documents quickly, often immediately after age confirmation.
- •The age verification policy is already active in the UK and Australia, with a global rollout set to begin in early March.
- •Discord updated an FAQ with a data collection disclaimer that later disappeared; an earlier version is archived on the Wayback Machine.