I’ve lost track of the number of apps that have scanned my face for one reason or another. I understand that apps are cracking down on age verification, and I’m all for protecting kids on the internet, but I do think that at some point parents are responsible for monitoring where their kids are spending their time online. I expect this trend to continue, given my experience in China, where everything is a face scan.
If you have your tinfoil hat with you while you’re reading this, now is a good time to lock in and put it on.
How Has Age Verification Evolved?
One of the earliest and biggest platforms to start implementing mandatory age checks was Roblox, which made sense given it has such a wide age range of daily users. In mid 2025, age estimation technology (facial scans and live video selfies) was introduced, and by November that year users were required to complete the age check or risk not having access to certain features. It’s exactly what we’re seeing today with Discord, with a global “teen by default” setting for all users where features are restricted.
A trend I’m noticing with all of these apps:
1️⃣ Age inference
The app uses account activity to infer whether you’re an adult
2️⃣ Facial age estimation
Record a short video selfie to estimate your age
3️⃣ If all else fails, a government ID upload
Will This Even Work?
Kids are obviously going to figure out how to get around this. When Roblox implemented a similar age check, kids were holding pictures of older people up to the phone, adding fake wrinkles, using apps to age their own pictures, and even just asking their parents to bypass the check. I do think there’s going to be a cat and mouse dynamic where people figure out how to cheat the system, and then the apps have to play catch up to patch those workarounds.
Where I do think this becomes a problem is when YouTube and Roblox try to determine age based on user behavior. There’s even a whole market of age-verified accounts being sold on places like eBay and Reddit. If you remember when YouTube began to roll out its age verification process, people were afraid they would be mislabeled as underage based on the content they watched, and Roblox has had plenty of issues with its own verification methods. Platforms can only police this so far. It’s ultimately up to parents to make sure their kids are staying safe on the internet.
Facial Scans Are Inevitable
Your ID in the future is your face. Whether you’re at a sporting event, an amusement park, or buying an ice cream cone, a scan of your face is going to be the ID in your wallet. I go to the Intuit Dome pretty regularly. They started using a voluntary facial recognition system called GameFace ID for entry, food, and retail purchases. What’s crazy is that 75% of people opt in for a faster experience. At first, I actually opted out, but it made getting into the arena a nightmare while my friends who opted in on the car ride over just walked in immediately. We all asked the question though, how would this work for identical twins?
The reality is facial scans are here. They’re at the airport, Disneyland, and now Discord. However, I can’t help but start asking why Discord would ever need to scan my face. Technology companies are going to make it very challenging to do anything without scanning your face. Hiding your face in the future is going to be much harder.
The Big Takeaway
Face scans and age verification are quickly becoming standard across both apps and real-world experiences. Platforms will keep tightening controls, but no system replaces parental oversight and personal responsibility. People will keep finding ways around the rules while companies keep patching them. The bigger reality is that convenience is winning, and your face is becoming your new ID.
Meta just patented an AI that takes over a dead person’s account, posting and chatting to keep their legacy alive forever. When I go, please don’t upload my brain to the cloud.
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