DISCORD CUTS TIES WITH PETER THIEL-BACKED VERIFICATION SOFTWARE AFTER ITS CODE WAS FOUND TIED TO US SURVEILLANCE EFFORTS

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Discord terminated its partnership with identity verification vendor Persona after researchers discovered nearly 2,500 accessible files on a FedRAMP government endpoint, revealing the software performs 269 distinct verification checks, including facial recognition against watchlists, politically exposed persons screening, and adverse media categorization across terrorism and espionage categories. Persona's CEO called the exposure publicly accessible front-end code rather than a vulnerability, but the discovery follows a 2025 breach at another Discord verification vendor that exposed government IDs of over 70,000 users. The incident underscores growing supply chain privacy risks in age verification systems, with Persona still serving OpenAI, Lime, and Roblox despite the controversy.