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On Friday, Oct. 3, Discord introduced {that a} third-party service supplier it makes use of for customer support efforts suffered a breach. It warned a “restricted variety of customers” who had communications with sure Discord groups had been affected, although the “unauthorized get together” didn’t achieve entry to any Discord networks straight.

In that preliminary announcement, Discord mentioned various consumer knowledge sorts may need been stolen. That included their names, usernames, electronic mail addresses, billing info, final 4 digits of bank cards, buy histories, IP addresses, messages with Discord service brokers, and “restricted company knowledge,” comparable to coaching supplies and inner displays.

Whereas all of this info is delicate, it sadly is not shocking to see as a part of a breach like this. Nonetheless, Discord additionally revealed that the hackers might have additionally gained entry to a “small quantity” of presidency ID pictures, together with driver’s licenses and passports. Because it seems, that “small quantity” turned out to be 70,000. Discord confirmed as a lot to The Verge on Wednesday. In case you had been amongst these affected customers, Discord could have reached out to you by way of electronic mail.

Age verification is a privateness nightmare

Why did a Discord affiliate even have these customers’ authorities IDs to start with? Age verification. Like many different firms, Discord now restricts sure content material to minors. If you’re incorrectly recognized as underage, you are allowed to attraction and show that you’re no less than 18 years previous. To take action, it is advisable to take a photograph of your self holding both a photograph ID along with your date of beginning, or a chunk of paper along with your full Discord username. Discord outsources this work to a third-party, which hackers focused on this knowledge breach.

As 404 Media experiences, hackers counsel they’ve taken much more knowledge than Discord has acknowledged. That features knowledge on whether or not customers had been verified or not; customers’ dwelling cities, states or counties, and nations; data on whether or not they had multi-factor authentication turned on for his or her account; and the final time they had been on-line on Discord.

This occasion demonstrates the dangers of firms requiring customers to confirm their ages by importing authorities IDs. Customers in Texas should confirm their ages earlier than they will obtain apps on their telephones, whereas various states require the identical earlier than accessing grownup web sites. Regardless of the place you reside, YouTube will use AI to guess your age, and, if it will get it flawed, you will must show your age your self.

The objective is to guard youngsters and underage customers from accessing content material they should not be seeing, however by doing it this manner, firms are placing customers in danger: They’re asking you to belief them along with your authorities IDs, bank cards, even selfies; or, if not them, a third-party affiliate. As we are able to see with this case, a lapse in safety means tens of 1000’s of Discord customers who had been simply making an attempt to show their age now have uncovered authorities IDs. What occurs when a whole state’s inhabitants faces the identical? Or a complete nation’s?