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
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:
| Company/Product | Used for | Additional notes |
|---|---|---|
| Brex | ||
| Carahsoft | ||
| Coursera | ||
| Discord | Age Verification | Discord claimed they allegedly ceased partnership with Persona and that the usage of their service was for "experimental" purposes in the United Kingdom. |
| DoorDash | ||
| Eaze | ||
| Etsy | ||
| Fire & Flower Holdings | ||
| First Republic | ||
| Grailed | ||
| Mercury | ||
| Age Verification, User Verification | ||
| OpenAI (ChatGPT) | Age Verification | Users verified as adults allow the models to generate explicit and sensitive content |
| Age Verifiaction | ||
| Roblox | Age Verification | |
| Serviap Global | ||
| Stifel Financial Corp | ||
| Swan Bitcoin | ||
| Wealthsimple | ||
| WeTravel |
Third Parties
These are third parties that can receive and use the data provided by Persona:
| Company | What is data used for | Additional notes |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | Data Extraction and Analysis | Data used to train AI models |
| OpenAI | Data Extraction and Analysis | Data used to train AI models |
| Groqcloud | Data Extraction and Analysis | Data used to train AI models |
| AWS | Infrastructure, Image Processing | |
| Google Cloud Platform | Infrastructure as Service | |
| Resistant AI | Document Analysis | |
| FingerprintJS | Device Analysis | |
| MongoDB | Database Services | |
| Snowflake | Database Services | |
| Elasticsearch | Search and Analytics Engine | |
| Confluent | ETL Services | |
| DBT | ETL Services | |
| Sigma Computing | Data Analytics | |
| Tableau | Data Analytics | |
| Stripe | Credit Card Processing | |
| Twilio | Communication APIs (Phone, SMS) | |
| Persona Identities Canada | Customer Support & Development |
See also
References
- ↑ https://redact.dev/blog/discord-persona-age-verification-experiment (Archived)
- ↑ "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. Archived from the original on 14 Feb 2026. Retrieved 2026-02-20.
- ↑ 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. Archived from the original on 3 Feb 2026. Retrieved 2026-01-20.
{{cite web}}: External link in|website= - ↑ https://vmfunc.re/blog/persona (Archived)
- ↑ https://withpersona.com/legal/privacy-policy-roblox