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Asking this out of curiosity: is it a requirement, that such data is being stored once the verification process is completed?

StanislavPetrov 1y ago
Requirement by who? Discord isn't required to demand your ID, let alone store it.
- nomel 1y ago
  It's required in the UK to access non-child friendly content: https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/33362401287959-What-s-Changing-for-UK-Users-Due-to-the-UK-Online-Safety-Act https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/33362401287959...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
dathinab 1y ago
in case of the EU it's more the opposite GDPR requires data minimalism and ~use case binding so if you submit data for age verification there is no technical reason to keep it after knowing your age so you _have to_ delete it.
- GJim 1y ago
  I've come a long way down for somebody to have finally said this! The GDPR is your friend. It makes retailing unnecessary personal data a liability. As it should be. Discord is idiotic for operating in the UK and Europe without complying. No excuses.
itake 1y ago
Just a guess, but they may store the original ID card to audit duplicate accounts. If their machine learning models, think that two people are the exact same, having the original image, especially a photo of the same ID card could confirm that.
- fuzzfactor 1y ago
  The best years online were when it was universally recognized that government ID's are completely unsuitable for interaction with the internet in any way. Like it was since the beginning when government ID's first became a thing.
- selcuka 1y ago
  There are image processing methods for hashing people's faces. They don't have to store the actual photo to do that.
  - itake 1y ago
    Models have racial biases, can't support aged faces, or look-alike faces.
    - heavyset_go 1y ago
      You don't have to use ML models for this.
      - itake 1y ago
        Can you elaborate more? Discord has 656m users. if 10% upload their ID, they'd have 65m ID photos to search through. There are 2 use-cases here: 1/ Safety Bans (lets pretend 0.01% of ID card users have been banned for safety reasons: 650k accounts) If a user submits their selfie/ID card, Discord needs to compare the new image with one of the 650k banned (but deleted?) images. I can't possible think how a human could remember the 650k photos well enough to declare a match. Even if such a human existed with this perfect recall, there can't be very many of them on this planet to hire. 2/ Duplicate account bans If a user registers, how can a support staff search the 65m photos without ML assistance to determine if this is a new user or a fraudster?
        selcuka 1y ago
        0.01% of 65M is 6,500. Also apparently only 70K people uploaded their IDs. That being said, you can still hash faces and metadata (such as ID numbers) instead of storing the whole ID as a scanned photo, if the information is only used for duplicate checking. Hashing does not increase the racial bias. If your model has a bias it will always have a margin of error.
3eb7988a1663 1y ago
That is the bonkers thing about this story. Why take on the liability? Get what you need and toss the responsibility. If you must store it (which seems unlikely) put that extra-bad-if-leaked information behind a separate append only service for which read is heavily restricted.
- jpalawaga 1y ago
  Because there is no liability. If they were fined $10k per leaked ID, then there is a serious liability there. Right now, they publish a press release, go 'oopsie poopsie', maybe have to pay for some anit-fraud things from equifax if someone asks, and call it day.
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    > Right now, they publish a press release, go 'oopsie poopsie', maybe have to pay for some anit-fraud things from equifax if someone asks, and call it day. Don't forget the usual Press Release starting with "At [Company], we take security very seriously..."
- heavyset_go 1y ago
  Because it's free training data and great for building profiles on users so you can make money showing them targeted ads
  - tavavex 1y ago
    Discord isn't really monetized through 'traditional' targeted advertising, though.
    - fuomag9 1y ago
      Discord no, but my credit card from Advanzia bank actually changed their TOS to allow AI training with your submitted documents for their anti-fraud model. I complained to the CNPD of Luxembourg and sent a GDPR request, as they defaulted to doing this WITHOUT asking for consent (super illegal as doing AI training with your data is definitely not the minimum required to offer the service)
Spooky23 1y ago
I’m in a different industry, but when I’ve had to collect identification for reasons we extracted metadata at the time of presentation, validated it, and discarded the image. We would never get clearance from counsel to store that in most scenarios, and I can’t think of a reason to justify it for a age or name verification.
stravant 1y ago
Why are people assuming they did store it after the process was completed? With the relatively low number leaked here it could have been information collected actively during an ongoing breach, not a dump of some permanent database.
- imtringued 1y ago
  There are only a handful of countries where you are legally mandated to dox yourself and it's a recent change. You'd expect the numbers to be "low" either way.

StanislavPetrov 1y ago

Requirement by who? Discord isn't required to demand your ID, let alone store it.

nomel 1y ago
It's required in the UK to access non-child friendly content: https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/33362401287959-What-s-Changing-for-UK-Users-Due-to-the-UK-Online-Safety-Act https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/33362401287959...
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

dathinab 1y ago

in case of the EU it's more the opposite GDPR requires data minimalism and ~use case binding so if you submit data for age verification there is no technical reason to keep it after knowing your age so you _have to_ delete it.

GJim 1y ago
I've come a long way down for somebody to have finally said this! The GDPR is your friend. It makes retailing unnecessary personal data a liability. As it should be. Discord is idiotic for operating in the UK and Europe without complying. No excuses.

itake 1y ago

Just a guess, but they may store the original ID card to audit duplicate accounts. If their machine learning models, think that two people are the exact same, having the original image, especially a photo of the same ID card could confirm that.

fuzzfactor 1y ago
The best years online were when it was universally recognized that government ID's are completely unsuitable for interaction with the internet in any way. Like it was since the beginning when government ID's first became a thing.
selcuka 1y ago
There are image processing methods for hashing people's faces. They don't have to store the actual photo to do that.
- itake 1y ago
  Models have racial biases, can't support aged faces, or look-alike faces.
  - heavyset_go 1y ago
    You don't have to use ML models for this.
    - itake 1y ago
      Can you elaborate more? Discord has 656m users. if 10% upload their ID, they'd have 65m ID photos to search through. There are 2 use-cases here: 1/ Safety Bans (lets pretend 0.01% of ID card users have been banned for safety reasons: 650k accounts) If a user submits their selfie/ID card, Discord needs to compare the new image with one of the 650k banned (but deleted?) images. I can't possible think how a human could remember the 650k photos well enough to declare a match. Even if such a human existed with this perfect recall, there can't be very many of them on this planet to hire. 2/ Duplicate account bans If a user registers, how can a support staff search the 65m photos without ML assistance to determine if this is a new user or a fraudster?
      - selcuka 1y ago
        0.01% of 65M is 6,500. Also apparently only 70K people uploaded their IDs. That being said, you can still hash faces and metadata (such as ID numbers) instead of storing the whole ID as a scanned photo, if the information is only used for duplicate checking. Hashing does not increase the racial bias. If your model has a bias it will always have a margin of error.

3eb7988a1663 1y ago

That is the bonkers thing about this story. Why take on the liability? Get what you need and toss the responsibility. If you must store it (which seems unlikely) put that extra-bad-if-leaked information behind a separate append only service for which read is heavily restricted.

jpalawaga 1y ago
Because there is no liability. If they were fined $10k per leaked ID, then there is a serious liability there. Right now, they publish a press release, go 'oopsie poopsie', maybe have to pay for some anit-fraud things from equifax if someone asks, and call it day.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  > Right now, they publish a press release, go 'oopsie poopsie', maybe have to pay for some anit-fraud things from equifax if someone asks, and call it day. Don't forget the usual Press Release starting with "At [Company], we take security very seriously..."
heavyset_go 1y ago
Because it's free training data and great for building profiles on users so you can make money showing them targeted ads
- tavavex 1y ago
  Discord isn't really monetized through 'traditional' targeted advertising, though.
  - fuomag9 1y ago
    Discord no, but my credit card from Advanzia bank actually changed their TOS to allow AI training with your submitted documents for their anti-fraud model. I complained to the CNPD of Luxembourg and sent a GDPR request, as they defaulted to doing this WITHOUT asking for consent (super illegal as doing AI training with your data is definitely not the minimum required to offer the service)

Spooky23 1y ago

I’m in a different industry, but when I’ve had to collect identification for reasons we extracted metadata at the time of presentation, validated it, and discarded the image. We would never get clearance from counsel to store that in most scenarios, and I can’t think of a reason to justify it for a age or name verification.

stravant 1y ago

Why are people assuming they did store it after the process was completed? With the relatively low number leaked here it could have been information collected actively during an ongoing breach, not a dump of some permanent database.

imtringued 1y ago
There are only a handful of countries where you are legally mandated to dox yourself and it's a recent change. You'd expect the numbers to be "low" either way.