Anthropic is implementing a new policy that may require users to undergo identity verification to access certain features of its Claude AI model. The company has selected Persona as its identity verification vendor, a choice that has previously sparked controversy during a similar implementation by the social discussion platform Discord.
Anthropic quietly updated its support page this week, indicating a phased rollout of identity verification on a case-by-case basis. According to the help page, verification prompts may appear when users access "certain capabilities, as part of our routine platform integrity checks, or other safety and compliance measures."
The company stated in its updated support language that "Identity verification helps us prevent abuse, enforce our usage policies, and comply with legal obligations."
To address user privacy concerns, Anthropic has committed not to use identity data for model training, to collect only "the minimum information required to verify your identity," and to share this data exclusively with Persona and Anthropic itself, except when legally mandated to respond to valid legal processes.
The name Persona Identities might be familiar to those who follow privacy news. Discord previously selected Persona as its age verification partner. This partnership faced scrutiny when a security researcher reported potential exposure of Persona's front end on a government server, leading to speculation about broader surveillance. While Persona convincingly denied these allegations to The Register, the resulting uproar prompted Discord to delay its age verification plans.
Persona's involvement in Anthropic's identity verification plans has quickly drawn user displeasure, with some Reddit users stating intentions to cancel their subscriptions.
Furthermore, concerns have been raised about Persona's use of numerous subprocessors for its identity verification process, including AWS, Confluent, Google, OpenAI, Stripe, and Twilio, and potentially Anthropic itself. Anthropic's help page clarifies that Persona is responsible for collecting selfie images and identity document snapshots for verification.