Khaberni - The Discord social networking platform revealed that sensitive data of about 70,000 users - such as images of their official IDs - may have been compromised after hackers breached an external service provider used by the platform for processing age-related appeals.
When Discord suspects that a user is a minor, or if the user lives in a location that requires identity verification to access the platform, Discord users may file an age-related appeal. In these cases, users are asked to send a selfie holding their official ID and their Discord username to the platform's Trust and Safety team.
Discord stated that it has contacted the users affected by the breach, whose exposed data may also include their IP addresses, which can reveal the general region they live in, according to a report by TechCrunch, a technology news website, reviewed by "Al Arabiya Business".
The breach may be larger than Discord has reported so far, as the hackers claim to have stolen 1.5 terabytes of data, which may include more than 70,000 images, according to the website "404".
A Discord spokesperson denied these claims, saying they are "untrue and part of an attempt to extort money".
The Discord user data breach highlights the concerns expressed by digital rights activists about using age verification processes as a means to make the internet "safer".
Age verification laws, which require users to upload sensitive information like official IDs which were exposed in this breach, have been enacted in about half of the American states.
The Online Safety Act in the United Kingdom, which came into effect in July, mandates a wider range of platforms to verify users' ages, including YouTube, Spotify, Google, X, and Reddit.
