Servers are Violating TOS by asking for government ID and DL
This has been a huge problem recently in discord. I do not believe any discord or owner of a server has any right to ask for someone's ID or driver's license or government id.
This does not only violates terms of service. It's also against the law. I and many do not understand why people are asking for a form of id that shows your photo, address, and info that they could use to steal your ID there are also servers out there with people who can remove the blacked-out areas of your ID and photos when you send them.
Not only are these people asking for them they then post the photo in a mod chat allowing anyone who mod access to the photos of peoples ids and not all of them allows people to block out the other info.
Discord already has it so they ask for your birthday also it's not hard to tell if someones of age by a photo but I do not find it okay that this has been a huge thing now.
This should also be stoped there are other ways to verify age. Such as: asking for a selfie, Looking for tattoos or piercings, Or simply asking for age and full birthday. Also if this is for NSFW servers there should be a way for NSFW servers to be listed as such so that way no one already within the age asked on discord can be allowed in.
I actually walked away from a server because they did this and they would have someone removed the blocked out info and then post it in a chat of mods where people can see the full id. Please Discord put a stop to this because it needs to be addressed fully not just halfway.
Also, I think if they can ask and allowed them to then they should put their IDS before asking people for their fair is fair. Also non of the servers that are doing this are doing that so they shouldn't be allowed to ask us for ours. We have no idea if we are showing our ID or LD to someone over the age limit.
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That is very illegal and against GDPR, you should report the servers to abuse@discordapp.com and let discord handle it
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May I ask which section of the guidelines / TOS this violates, as I need to bring this to awareness to a server owner.
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It violates the part where it says you can't engage in illegal activites. Discord is bound to GDPR and they keep private information which will never be deleted because it is posted by users. The discord servers doesn't manage a gdpr policy or a privacy policy because it's a discord server. The people that does this has no communication, security nor will they allow you to ask to delete it. Nothing will happen to the private users but discord will be in a lot of trouble because of it so they need to ban the owner/server and remove the private data
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It's not illegal to ask for an ID. The GDPR whining is irrelevant, Discord is an American company. You don't whine when you show ID for cigarettes, alcohol and so on. Requiring ID to gain access to a club or private area/service is not a violation of any law in the US, and I doubt it is a violation of the GDPR, but I will grant that I don't know enough about it to have a full opinion there
As for the comments about guessing age based on appearance. Appearance is considered to be the least reliable method of determining someone's age. They teach this at most retailers that sell alcohol.
Other methods of determining age suggested:
Tattoos/piercings - given the fact that laws are inconsistent on this, and these can be done at home, this is completely unreliable.
Asking for age/birthday - I don't think this needs a dignified response, but I will just point out that this is essentially asking people to be honest.-6 -
Showing ID for cigarettes or entering a club is way different than showing your ID to some person who created a discord server. Emphasis on "some person". This is not a formal entity that can be held accountable for privacy policy violations. It could possibly be a ring of ID thieves obtaining information. Furthermore, these server owners - again, "some person" - don't offer or even have an agreement or disclosure on what they do with your data or personal information. All I've heard is that they will "most certainly delete the ID once it has been verified". Cool, except how are they bound to that word? Moreover, that's 100% false since I'm sure Discord saves data that appears on it's servers.
What I'm getting at is there is no possible way for you to verify who you're sending your information to. If Discord wants to limit it's services to 18+ individuals then it needs to seek verification when you create an account. That way, your information isn't in the hands of "some person" or possibly "some people".
"The server owners aren't holding a gun to my head for my ID." - I understand that much. However, please refer to my last paragraph on why that's not a good counter argument. Asking for it in the first place should be a violation of Discord TOS (in regards to a person who created a server, not Discord as a whole).
"What if a minor lies about his age?" - Again, that responsibility should lie with Discord. If they want to allow anyone to create a discord account then they should take the necessary steps to verify ID, not a discord user who created a server.
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I'd like to point out that asking for someones ID is obviously a violation of discord TOS. Something easily determinable by actually reading it.
Under the TOS passage titled "Rules of conduct and usage" you will find a bullet point list of things you're not allowed to do, one of them quite clearly states
"attempt to obtain passwords or other private information from other members;"
Note the "Or other private information from other members" Requesting that members send you a government issue, photo ID for the purposes of verifying their age is in fact attempting to obtain private information that you as an individual are not legally entitled to.
You do not work for discord, and operating a discord server does not make you one of their employees. Demanding this type of information from users violates discord TOS by the very word. Whether or not Discord chooses to enforce it is up to them.
Managing a discord server is not the same as operating a licensed commercial business, stop trying to draw that comparison.
Without further clarification from Discord themselves, every server requesting ID is in violation of TOS at the very least by how it is written.
Note: GDPR Means nothing, discord is an American company and it's TOS explicitly states that it will be held to US law. You have to agree to that stipulation to use the service. In the TOS under the "General" section, subsection "Governing Law" you will find this
"By visiting or using the Service, you agree that the laws of the United States and the State of California, without regard to principles of conflict of laws and regardless of your location, will govern these Terms and any dispute of any sort that might arise between you and the Company."
I would like to say however that even if Discord say it is allowed, they're simply shirking their responsibilities onto server owners. Private individuals have no business what so ever demanding ID anonymously online for access to platforms they don't own. It is the responsibility of Discord to ensure NSFW content is not made unreasonably accessible to minors, not "SeRvEr OwNeRs" masquerading as commercial enterprises
******EDIT**** I have submitted a request to discord staff, asking for clarification regarding the TOS and will update my answer here if and when I receive a reply.
If you are a server owner in a NSFW server that demands ID for full access I would suggest you also request clarification from discord.4 -
Did you ever get an answer on this? I'm curious.
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If you go to this link an engineer for discord tells you it actually isnt illegal. If you look through his profile you will see many instances of proof he actually is an engineer for them.
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******************************Message received from Discord Trust&Safety*************************
"Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out about this. Although we don’t encourage users to ask for identification, it is not a violation of our Community Guidelines. Users are free to share whatever information about themselves as they wish; however, we strongly encourage users to protect their personal information and not share it.
That said, if someone’s personal information is then shared maliciously without the consent of the user who provided the information, that would be a violation. If you would like to report such a violation to us, please provide us with message links where the personal information is shared without consent. You can find instructions on how to gather those links here.
Regards,
Discord Trust & Safety"
***********************END OF MESSAGE*****************
So, they are non-committal about it. They don't currently consider it a violation (Meaning they willingly violate their own TOS, since word for word it would be a violation if the TOS were taken literally) but they also don't recommend it nor condone it. This means that NSFW servers that do require age verification are doing so purely of their own accord without any sort of blessing from Discord itself. Discord did not tell them to do it, did not suggest to them that they do it, nor does Discord require server owners to do it.
Either way, my two cents. If you're in a NSFW discord that demands your ID, leave it and go somewhere else. Or don't and risk doxing yourself simply because you don't know what to hide or what information might lead to your legal name being exposed, all because server owners want to pretend they actually have some authority over members private lives.
Effectively, discord seems to be allowing servers to create their own TOS individually, even if it goes directly against what the companies TOS states. My guess is that the primary reason in this case is because discord is simply too lazy to implement age verification of it's own and would rather shirk the responsibility onto random, anonymous server owners and moderators who could easily abuse the information they're demanding, against whom you'd have no legal recourse since you have no idea who they are.3 -
I read a lot of Bullcrap around here:
- The argument whether Discord is a US-owned company won't stand up in court when a company delivers services across their borders. A company is bound to the laws of the country they deliver their services at, that is the main reason why some sites aren't reachable via normal trafficking across our borders because they plain and simple do not comply with those rules.
- Showing IDs .vs buying cigarettes or alcohol won't stand. Showing an ID for Smokes or liquor to clarify your age is clearly not the same as documenting your ID online. The OP clearly stated that the servers where he witnessed these infractions are not only asking for an ID they also document the information where you as an end-user do not know what happens with your ID after you showed it to their Server admins.
- Discord trust & safety needs to get a bit of legal education. whether it is written down in their community guidelines or not doesn't make it legal or illegal. I'll explain this more in-depth further down.
To be the advocate's devil:
No matter what the TOS or Community guidelines on discords say, the law in Europe is fairly simple and direct when it comes to written down laws. Now, the following focuses only on whether a company should or should not need to comply with EU laws whenever they operate mainly outside of the EU borders. When a company does not comply with the laws within the EU and its TOS guidelines aren't stipulated these laws correctly. Then even when the end-user still agreed upon the TOS the user is still protected within the guiding factor of the law where the company is forced to enforce that specific law when it needs to be applied. In other words, if someone would sue discord in Europe for breaking in general any law they will eventually lose.
Do you want examples? -> https://www.enforcementtracker.com/Plenty, it happens on a daily basis where company's like Facebook, Instagram, Sony end even Microsoft tried to lock down their user's personal information without the possibility to opt-out. I can guarantee you that it would be even more complex for Discord when this involves a third party where they allowed them to breach any EU law.
Sadly Companies such as discord and the likes know this and they make their TOS fairly complex to read for a normal person. In many cases, a lot of people complain about such issues stated above but they rarely enforce their rights because the procedures are often lengthy and companies, like stated above, have a lot of suits that can drag these procedures for a long time.
So yes in the light of the OP's post here:
To cut it short, they are in fact obligated to enforce those rules since they are listed as GDPR compliant, and, no matter what their TOS or community guidelines state or what they think is right. Whenever they would allow their users to break those rules and partake in illegal actions then they can be held accountable if this can be proven.
Honesty, I gonna point this to those that clearly do not know what the GDPR guideline is about. The GDPR guidelines are clearly there to protect the personal info of an individual when they are being documented. So if and when a host of a server asks for personal documents in return to use a specific room or service delivered within that room then yes they are in breach of the GDPR guidelines. Especially when it involves a minor. ... At that point, it doesn't matter anymore what Discord might think is right. At that point, the users asking for such information illegally are basically breaching the EU GDPR law whenever it involves an EU citizen.
Discords TOS and community guidelines are vague in this but it is clearly stated that you can not commit any illegal actions. And thus with the former act, the user is technically in violation of the GDPR law so they must act!
The GDPR law is a very complex law but it is there with good reason.
Information source: https://gdpr.eu/compliance-checklist-us-companies/0 -
Last thing I'll say on this topic:
Guys, let's be real. Why would anyone ever want to send their private information to some random person on the internet? People come and go from servers every day. They join for some nsfw art or the chance of hooking up with another random person on the internet and I'm sure the success rate for this is somewhere below 1%. Just don't do it. It's not worth the negligible chance that you'll hit it off with some woman who lives 96782 mi. away.
Please be safe and protect your personal information that you'll never get back if some guy across the world decides to steal it. Who are you going to have them answer to if you don't even know who they are?
THINK!
***EDIT*** - I know I typed this up quick and there's probably grammar errors abound. Also, I know I'm preaching to the choir since everyone here seems to agree that these people asking for private information need to be stopped. We stop them by NOT verifying ourselves. Who are they? Some person who decided to make a server. Yeah, them and every other discord mod who thinks they hold some power over people. They don't.
I reiterate: BE SAFE! ❤
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Except yall are looking way too deep into this most and i mean MOST nsfw servers tell you and reiterate numerous times not to send them youre whole I.D. card i have about 80 ive joined because they have the best emojis. The most i have seen asked for is a picture of you card with EVERYTHING COVERED except your birthdate and picture and then a picture of you with your discord username wrote down with the date.. nsfw servers arejt out here trying to steal your information on a regular basis and it is your choice but if people truly have problems with it fine make a lawsuit instead of complaining to them what you think they are doing with their own TOS that is made by laywers not some kid sitting in his basment who thinks he knows what hes doing. Its kinda amazing yall are advocating so hard against this when its doing actually alot more to stop underage kids from getting into servers that are already deemed 18+ by the nsfw tag by just lying about their age when they make an account then to be taken advantage of by the amount of messed up adults that have access to the internet, to the ratio of people that have their info posted
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Discord has answered this question. It's not illegal or against TOS . There are valid reasons to get verification. If you block out your private info and just show your year of birth it shouldn't be an issue .I've been on a few nsfw servers that have had minors join . They had to be removed and it was really unsafe for everyone. It's important to be safe and create a safe space for adults . No one is forcing you to join a server . If you want to stay anonymous then don't join,
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I have been admin in these types of servers you're referring to (60K+ members), and quite frankly, you all sound like a bunch of underaged kids trying to bypass their verification process so you can get a peak at what's behind closed doors. ANY NSFW server worth being in will instruct you to blur any identifying piece of information on your ID aside from your PICTURE, and your DATE OF BIRTH. I don't care what your name is, I don't care where you live. I only care that you're above 18. We then instruct you to delete the picture once we have verified that you ARE/ARE NOT over the age of 18. Plain and simple, if you don't want to verify with ID, then don't be there. No one is forcing your hand.
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That is not what the Discord ToS says in word. It says private info and the spirit of that rule is dealing with doxxing people, not with verifying ages. Every comment about that is spewing BS. In addition, every comment about GDPR is irrelevant because very few if any discord servers would not be exempt from it. Actually read it some time.
Even more, in every server I've been in, like has been explained, you are instructed to block out all identifying info except for the photo and DoB. Feel free to present any evidence that server mods are de-anonymizing IDs. I doubt anyone will. And if they were, report *that*. The practice as a whole is sound. You're not comfortable with it? Fine. Find another. But the people running the server and the people in that server themselves aren't comfortable with the possibility of sharing that space with children.
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Diff GDPR Is irrelevant simply because it's EU law, and by using Discord you agree to the ToS, which clearly states Discord will only be held to the Law of the US/California. Either way, the entirety of your government issued ID and all of the information on it constitute private information.
It also doesn't really matter if mods are de-anonymizing IDs or not, discord moderators are just random people who happen to be in positions of power on a single server on a single platform, they have no business IDing anyone. A discord server isn't a business, it's not a piece of property you own, nor a space you have any legal rights to other than what Discord allows.
Discord as a company could potentially be held accountable for the abuse of the information they are provided, some random schmuck on discord however will be nigh impossible to find, let alone punish for misuse/abuse of the private information they collect/have access to.
Also, stop using "For the children" as some sort of argumentative excaliber. As if merely prefacing your decisions with "It's for the kids" somehow automatically makes it a good idea. I could use that same logic to justify never allowing my child to leave the house because "The world be dangerous"1 -
It's sad and funny at the same time that Discord still haven't done anything about this and when I Tweet them or DM them on twitter they tell me "Post it to the support forum" all the time. Yet, here we are, they have done NOTHING
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@Balzarine Mythus A ToS is not a legal document and is in no way above the law. If a company wants to do business in the EU, they have to follow GDPR. Some companies just don't, and instead choose to block all European IP addresses.
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Jdbye you're missing the fact that Discord servers are not Discord. Discord is not collecting this, it's servers. And it's not Discord's responsibility to hash out law, that's for the legal system. And that legal system does not care about tiny servers that slide neatly into the exemptions because most of them aren't businesses, and the ones that could be considered businesses are tiny enough to, again, fit in the exemptions. Literally all you guys have to do is not join those servers if it bothers you.
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