Reddit Launches Age Verification for U.K. Users
Under the U.K. Online Safety Act, Reddit will now collect and verify U.K.-based users' ages before allowing them to view certain adult content, it announced Monday.
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To verify age, Reddit said it partners with third-party provider Persona, which performs the verification on either an uploaded selfie or a photo of a user's government ID.
Reddit lacks access to the photos and will only store users' verification status along with birthdates so they won't have to re-enter them each time they try to access restricted content.
Persona won't retain photos for more than seven days or have access to people's Reddit data. Birthdates are never visible to other users or advertisers, Reddit said.
As laws change, Reddit may collect and/or verify age in places other than the U.K., it noted. It introduced a voluntary global option for users to provide their birthdates to optimize their experience on the site.
"Using Reddit has never required disclosing your real world identity, and these updates don't change that," the company added.
Bluesky also recently announced it will verify ages to comply with the U.K.'s Online Safety Act (see 2507100067).