Persona

Persona
Basic information
Founded
Legal Structure	Private
Industry	Software
Also known as
Official website	https://withpersona.com/

Persona is an Identity Verification company, founded in 2018 by Rick Song and Charles Yeh. It is funded by Founders Fund which is an adventure capitalist firm c-founded by Peter Theil. ^[1]

From the 14th July 2025 they started working with Reddit to perform ID checks on it's UK site, as part of the UK's Online Safety Act.^[2]

In February 2026 Discord announced they would be experimenting with Persona to perform ID checks worldwide.^[3]

Consumer-impact summary

User Freedom

Products and services with the services provided by Persona usually block functionalities and content (generally content or functionalities flagged as "adult" content) until the verification is complete or bypassed. If the user is verified as an adult, they'll be able to have total or most access to the content of that product or service.

User Privacy

Information submitted by users can be retained up to three years. This data might be used to track the user's identity or to train AI models.

Business Model

Persona provides their services to products and services like social media or video games.

Market Control

Incidents

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This is a list of all consumer-protection incidents this company is involved in. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the Persona category.

AI-Powered Ages Verification leads to inaccurate age verification on Roblox (Jan 2026)

Children were being identified as adults and vice versa on Roblox.^[4] The age verification restricted who the users could talk to. This implementation was criticised as not helping to address safety concerns, and harming the user experience.^[5]

Persona tracks users

On the 16th of February, 2026, a security researcher known as Celeste published an article showing that Persona was building profiles on users and sharing said profiles with the US government.^[6] Alongside that, it was also discovered that 269 different checks were used for verification, which included things like phone carrier queries and death record matching. With their privacy policy hiding these checks under vague terms like "public government documents".^[7]

Products

Identity Verification (2021)
Age Verification (2025)

Clients

Persona provides their service to these companies and products:

Brex
Carahsoft
Coursera
Discord
DoorDash
Eaze
Etsy
Fire & Flower Holdings
First Republic
Grailed
Mercury
LinkedIn
OpenAI (ChatGPT)
Reddit
Roblox
Serviap Global
Stifel Financial Corp
Swan Bitcoin
Wealthsimple
WeTravel

References

↑ https://redact.dev/blog/discord-persona-age-verification-experiment
↑ "Reddit starts verifying ages of users in the UK". BBC News. 2025-07-14. Retrieved 2026-02-20. {{cite news}}: |archive-url= requires |archive-date= (help)
↑ "Discord is rolling out facial scanning and ID checks globally in March for users who don't want to be locked into a 'teen-appropriate experience'". PC Gamer. 2026-02-09. Retrieved 2026-02-20.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
↑ Gilbert, David (2026-01-13). "Roblox's AI-Powered Age Verification Is a Complete Mess". Wired. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); |archive-url= requires |archive-date= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
↑ "Age Check to Chat Update & Fast Follow Roadmap". https://devforum.roblox.com/. 2026-01-09. Retrieved 2026-01-20. {{cite web}}: External link in |website= (help)CS1 maint: url-status (link)
↑ https://vmfunc.re/blog/persona
↑ https://withpersona.com/legal/privacy-policy-roblox

[1] ttps://redact.dev/blog/discord-persona-age-verification-experiment

[2] "Reddit starts verifying ages of users in the UK". BBC News. 2025-07-14. Retrieved 2026-02-20. {{cite news}}: |archive-url= requires |archive-date= (help)

[3] "Discord is rolling out facial scanning and ID checks globally in March for users who don't want to be locked into a 'teen-appropriate experience'". PC Gamer. 2026-02-09. Retrieved 2026-02-20.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

[4] Gilbert, David (2026-01-13). "Roblox's AI-Powered Age Verification Is a Complete Mess". Wired. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); |archive-url= requires |archive-date= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)

[5] "Age Check to Chat Update & Fast Follow Roadmap". https://devforum.roblox.com/. 2026-01-09. Retrieved 2026-01-20. {{cite web}}: External link in |website= (help)CS1 maint: url-status (link)

[6] ttps://vmfunc.re/blog/persona

[7] ttps://withpersona.com/legal/privacy-policy-roblox

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