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Anthropic updates their terms to verify age or identity
- ryanisnan 3mo agoThis feels deeply problematic. I would much prefer, where asked via appropriate legal processes, Anthropic serve over user data to government officials, and potentially suspend access.
- pants2 3mo agoIs this new news? > This policy was published on June 8, 2026 with an effective date of July 8, 2026
- qsxfthnkp2322 3mo agoThis is a horrible idea and I’m sure it’ll go very well for them. /s
- lnenad 3mo agoI was really hoping we’d have more time before enshittification arrived. But apparently, an old Xeon running Qwen is my destiny.
- Azantys 3mo ago+1
- Madmallard 3mo ago[flagged]
- qsxfthnkp2322 3mo agoCan’t wait for their ipo.
- timmg 3mo agoThey probably don't have much, I guess.
- andrewstuart 3mo agoIf programming requires LLM/AI then regulation by government is needed to stop this overreach, which has the primary goal of banning you permanently forever making sure you can never come back to programming, in the event some AI in their system decides you have done something “wrong”.
- focusgroup0 3mo ago[dead]
- throwaw12 3mo agoCouple years ago the West was complaining about surveillance and scoring system of citizens in China (or was making fun of it) Seems like US wants to get ahead on this and be #1 Also Sam Altman will love this idea, because he already tried it with Worldcoin
- giancarlostoro 3mo agoIt's a little bold to assume that 15% of the US population means the entire US wants this. We founded this country against unwarranted government interference in our personal lives, it's why the fourth and fifth amendment exist.
- janalsncm 3mo agoYou could say the same about China, where only 7% of people can vote. In the US, 72% of people can vote.
- giancarlostoro 3mo agoIn the US over half of the population is said to be concerned that there's not enough legal protections to prevent the government from snooping on telecoms and internet data. Only roughly 14% of the US population want to go to the more extreme of having surveillance in every household. 74% of correspondents to a poll by the Center for Democracy and Technology were concerned about agencies handling and consolidating personal data.
- micromacrofoot 3mo agothe funny thing is that the US created the credit system
- kridsdale1 3mo agoBecause we dismantled class and caste. It’s a “meritocracy caste” system (nevermind that you likely get huge advantages based on your origin)
- etchalon 3mo agoI should be worried about this, but Anthropic's products are a paid product. You can't use them without providing some identifying information, unless you're going out of your way to provide them inaccurate information. I generally dislike services which require this level of identity verification but also, so far, those have mostly been freemium services and community tools. And I dislike gating those communities. I'm sure I should have more of a problem with this.
- D2OQZG8l5BI1S06 3mo agoI have no problem paying my groceries with my credit card, but I'd rather not give them a copy of my passport...
- lucasban 3mo agoWhat about a signed attestation of your identity based on your passport? I don’t particularly want a future where we need to present ID for any online service, but for certain high-risk services (e.g. financial services, medical records, government portals) I’d rather a proper identity system than cobbling something like this together. As an aside, when traveling internationally it’s not uncommon to need to provide your passport information if you want to get a sales tax rebate. I’ve never purchased something expensive enough abroad to bother with it.
- etchalon 3mo agoI'd have a problem with that too. In fact, I'd have a problem not being allowed to use cash. I am deeply inconsistent on this.
- Tangurena2 3mo agoThe British company doing age verification for Discord got hacked and the hackers got about 70k user identity documents. Discord claimed that the scanned documents would be deleted after verification. Surprise! They were not deleted at all. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/oct/09/hack-age-verification-firm-discord-users-id-photos https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/oct/09/hack-age-verif...
- Rooster61 3mo ago[Dupe]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48618455 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48618455
- onesandofgrain 3mo agoSo in practise this means I need to upload my passport to continue using the CLI and the chat?
- SimianSci 3mo agoMore signal that the open-weight models should be our destiny as an industry. These proprietary models are being used to usher in more surveillance and gatekeeping across the industry.
- mrits 3mo agoEither way I don't think this will end well for humanity.
- scottyah 3mo agoHow could it not? I get the whole fear of AI making robots and going anti-human, but after using the tech for a few months now that seems too absurd.
- munk-a 3mo agoThere are two rationale objections, I think... One is the potential for skill rot where AI grows a heavy dependence in new employees and once the real price per token cost is settled on and discoverable (post massive IPOs and probably a while post - not immediately after) we, as a society, are left with a bunch of people dependent on a deeply inefficient technology to maintain software we now view as vital that might severely impede our ability to actually deal with climate change (press X to doubt Bezos). The second is that the psychological damage of interacting with models in a social context during your formative years is deeply damaging and we've essentially destroyed the ability for a generation or two to actually interact as productive members of society. Addressing the second issue doesn't necessarily exclude our ability to leverage models for business productivity but it seems unlikely to happen in the current climate without that also happening. I am hesitant to believe in a sudden outbreak of common sense at this point. The first point, could really be a systems collapse trigger - we can argue about the likelihood but denying it as a possibility is excessively naive.
- sevenzero 3mo agoI agree with the skill drain argument but also think its a little too dramatic. Most people still can do the shit claude does for them, it just takes them 10x as long.
- micromacrofoot 3mo agothat's what my credit card is for
- ceejayoz 3mo agoCredit cards don't validate age. I set my kids up with authorized user cards when they started going out with friends.
- onepointsixC 3mo agoMaybe they should. It would be far less intrusive for venders who wish to sell age restricted goods to simply have it built in like that.
- ceejayoz 3mo agoYou want to let every merchant I swipe my card at know my age? To improve privacy?
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- galleywest200 3mo agoNo, the assumption is that you must be 18 years old to apply for a credit card. Surely we could have the machines determine that an "authorized user card" does not guarantee 18+ but the actual card does.
- nairboon 3mo agoThey don't need to know the exact age. But if kids couldn't get credit cards... then possession of a credit card would be a proof of adulthood.
- ACCount37 3mo agoAn absence of "this user is underage" flag would be good enough. Less than 1 bit of private information leaked by transaction.
- kps 3mo agoIf Anthropic develops an AGI, it'll be too young to use any Anthropic services.
- ACCount37 3mo agoIf it's an actual AGI, it'll figure out how to use a fake ID and the face of Sam Porter Bridges to bypass the age checks. Now I can't help but imagine a mildly annoyed AGI buying yet another fake identity to deal with yet another KYC check, because those stupid humans are inherently racist and just can't help themselves but keep demanding "proof of flesh".
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- Aurornis 3mo agoThis is an updated terms of service, but they've had ID verification for certain accounts and situations for months. Here is the Wayback Machine archive from April of their identity verification help page: https://web.archive.org/web/20260415064244/https://support.claude.com/en/articles/14328960-identity-verification-on-claude https://web.archive.org/web/20260415064244/https://support.c... Here's a random Reddit thread from 2 months ago about them rolling out identity verification: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1smr9vs/claude_is_about_to_begin_its_kyc_verification/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1smr9vs/claude_is... Here is one random example thread of someone who got caught in identity verification with multiple follow-on comments from people who encountered the same problem, also 2 months old: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1sx25kd/buyer_beware_claudes_identity_verification_has/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1sx25kd/buyer_b...
- thih9 3mo agoA consistent effort to introduce age and identity checks sounds even worse.
- gib444 3mo ago[flagged]
- gruez 3mo agoIf you have an actual rebuttal, present it. Don't use thinly veiled implications that OP is some sort of a shill as a substitute for a cogent rebuttal.
- Aurornis 3mo agoEDIT: Parent commenter completely rewrote their comment while I was replying. I'm leaving this up as is. The text below is their original comment that I was responding to. > What are you pushing by pointing out not only in this thread but the previous one too, quite in depth, that it's not new? I know you can claim you're just a stickler for accurate reporting but you seem really invested Because these threads degrade into panic with the assumption that everyone is getting ID checked now. Pointing out that the policy has been in place for 2 months puts it into perspective that this isn't a sudden policy change requiring ID for everyone. It's been this way for months. If they roll out mandatory ID checking for everyone, that would be a different story.
- wren6991 3mo agoThat's fine, I already cancelled my subscription after they admitted to using PEFT to selectively and silently make their models dumber when working in certain technical fields. [ref: section 1.5 of Mythos/Fable 5 system card, https://www-cdn.anthropic.com/d00db56fa754a1b115b6dd7cb2e3c342ee809620.pdf https://www-cdn.anthropic.com/d00db56fa754a1b115b6dd7cb2e3c3...] Maybe that was petty, but I was already looking for alternatives after the obvious angling for increased regulation and suppression of local models. LLMs are software and I want to modify them and run them on hardware that I own.
- beiburg 3mo agoCan you please elaborate?
- Terr_ 3mo agoProbably this stuff which caused backlash: https://www.wired.com/story/anthropic-responds-to-backlash-on-claudes-secret-sabotage-on-ai-research/ https://www.wired.com/story/anthropic-responds-to-backlash-o...
- paulcole 3mo agoWhat did you switch to?
- wren6991 3mo agoGLM-5.2 meets my needs for "thinky" tasks, which for me is code and documentation reviews, technical chats and rubber ducking. (I've tried agentic coding and gone back to writing by hand; besides ethical and skill atrophy concerns, I mostly do hardware design and have not been satisfied with any model's RTL output.) API rates are cheaper than Haiku, with benchmarks around Opus 4.6. I've managed to run GLM-5.2 at home, very slowly, but still neat that this is possible. I personally find it less grating to talk to than Opus. I use a local Qwen3.6-35B-A3B (@ Q4_K_XL) for my documentation search harness. It works well for its assigned task, which is: - I dump in a bucket of PDFs and/or source code. - I ask a question. - Qwen greps, fuzzy-searches, views rendered PDF pages to check diagrams, possibly gives up and reads everything, and possibly gives up on that too and writes its own scraper with PyMuPDF in a Pyodide sandbox. - Qwen gives me an answer consisting mostly of citations and links back into the source material. This approach with local Qwen can extract useful answers from the Armv9-A manual, which at 17k pages is possibly too big for any context window. Qwen has just enough knowledge baked in to know what to search for and understand what it's looking at. A more knowledgeable model would be a waste because even Fable makes shit up, and I want citations, not hallucinations. DeepSeek v4 Flash gets an honourable mention: somehow all three of fast, capable and cheap. Zero-data-retention providers are available for both GLM-5.2 and DSv4F. I trust OpenRouter ZDR about as much as I trust Anthropic ZDR, since I can audit neither. Overall I don't miss my Claude subscription, but take what I say with a grain of salt. I was just a Pro subscriber, not a heavy user like some other folks here.
- CrzyLngPwd 3mo agoReason #1 why I won't be working with their stuff.
- krumhausen 3mo agoHmm. giving my personal data away to an American company controlled by us gov that infringes people’s IP and is now using an ID verify by Peter Thiel.
- gitfan86 3mo agoThis is their only option. Someone who is the head of security for a hospital IT department needs access to mythos, and some 17 year old with fraud convictions doesn't. It's the same reason we require ID for alcohol and gun purchases. Obviously it isn't a perfect system, teens drink but good luck suggesting that 13 year old should be allowed to buy alcohol.
- petcat 3mo agoUS regulations on AI is going to make it more and more difficult for EU/UK/everyone else to access these model providers. At this point it's completely outgrageous that the EU, UK, or even Canada can't put forth the funding to develop their own local AI model industry.
- gib444 3mo agoWe'll talk to China
- lenerdenator 3mo agoIt's not that they can't, it's that it's 1) not a priority 2) expensive as hell The amounts of capital sunk into AI model creation and service is truly mind-boggling. It also comes with the implication that it'll recoup investment by slashing jobs. For better or worse, those are hard sells in the countries you mentioned.
- thewebguyd 3mo ago> For better or worse, those are hard sells in the countries you mentioned. For good reasons, sometimes. The "all automation is good automation" sentiment on places like HN isn't shared as widely outside this tech bubble. There are very real concerns with historical precedent that only those at the top will benefit from the automation, which is overall bad for society (unless you're a hardcore capitalist and/or one of said capital owners). For better or for worse, not all nations subscribe to the competition treadmill.
- smotched 3mo agoIts not a government issue in those counties, the US government didnt fund anthopic, openai, etc.
- epolanski 3mo agoWe don't have the right incentives to attract the right talent and capital. Plain and simple.
- Tangurena2 3mo ago
- thelonelyborg 3mo agothis was inevitable
- moogly 3mo agoHmm, is this a thing for enterprise accounts too? My employer has gone all-in on Claude, but if I get a pop-up that requires me to give my ugly mug to a literal cardinal enemy of the human race Peter Thiel, then I will have to seriously consider switching jobs, because I have some of them silly principles.
- dvduval 3mo agoWe’ve been in sort of a golden age where massive money is getting pulled in and consumers are getting a great deal. That’s not going to last, and surely surveillance and personal information are going to fit into the formula for success for these companies. It’s very similar to when Google was a brand new search engine.
- ieie3366 3mo agoConsumers don't use claude. they use free slop models. claude token usage is something like 98% professional users using it for work
- beej71 3mo agoMaybe they can look at my credit history and see that it's over 18.
- cboyardee 3mo ago[dead]
- km3r 3mo agoI'm curious if identify verification is a precursor to re-enabling Fable for only US nationals. Not that I like that route, but may be the only way Anthropic can keep releasing new models with the current administration.
- codedokode 3mo agoMaybe access should be enabled only for large trusted companies? If every American has access how many of them would gladly sell their verified account to a stranger from Internet who cannot pronounce "th" clearly?
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- ReptileMan 3mo agoElon: I will burn 20 years of goodwill I have gathered with the tech community. Sam Altman: I will make sure to increase the price of all semiconductors, so you are not the most hated. Dario: You are not leaving me here alone to be the good guy, so hold my beer.
- MisterKent 3mo agoIf Fable is only for US citizens, presumably that will apply to enterprises as well. I used fable on some difficult stuff and it was surprisingly good. It's safe to say that models aren't going to get worse. Does that mean: US citizens will get an edge in hireability? Assuming: 1. Non-US companies can't keep up Or 2. That model improvements continue to convince management of productivity improvements
- colechristensen 3mo ago>Does that mean: US citizens will get an edge in hireability? In the present situation any company using Fable will present a tremendous difficulty because only defense contractors are accustomed to handling export controls. We're still guessing but if Fable is made available again with the export controls intact, something as little as discussing the usage of Fable to a non-"US Person" (i.e. green card or citizen) in the cubicle next to yours could be a crime punishable with sizable fines and even jailtime. They'll certainly be negotiating this down or trying their best to reduce the scope of what's considered a violation. Export controls are no joke and what's considered "export" can be positively tiny. It's enforced the way you'd wish HIPAA were.
- swader999 3mo agoHow does open router work then if we just go through that?
- ChrisArchitect 3mo ago[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48618455 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48618455
- nubinetwork 3mo agoConsidering that you need a credit card to pay for the tokens, why does anthropic need to verify your age or identity? Yes, I suppose some kid could steal my credit card, but I've got bigger problems if that happens...
- derwiki 3mo agoI use a privacy.com card and not my real name
- fraywing 3mo agoGLM-5.2 has been impressive. Having my engineers swap over to it from Claude has garnered very little complaint. The lack of multi-modality is a limitation, but using minimax m3 for that isn't super inconvenient.
- aplomb1026 3mo ago[flagged]
- swader999 3mo agoFrom their terms: 'Identity and Contact Data: Anthropic collects identifiers, including your name, email address, and phone number when you sign up for an Anthropic account, or to receive information on our Services. We may also collect or generate indirect identifiers (e.g., “USER12345”).' Too bad we can't contact them if we have issues.
- exceptione 3mo agoAlso, Anthropic will maintain and use data in user identified form if the law does not prohibit such privacy intrusion. At least this is a valid interpretation imho; note the absence of "explicitly" as adverb for "permitted": «Where data is de-identified, Anthropic will maintain and use this information in its de-identified form, and will not attempt to re-identify such information, except as permitted by law.»
- beloch 3mo agoAI companies are in a bit of a double bind here. Countries such as Canada are in the process of implementing regulations to prevent repeats of the Tumbler Ridge incident. A disturbed person was basically attaboy'd by AI into a mass shooting. The discussions this person had with OpenAI's AI triggered some alarm bells at OpenAI, but they did nothing about them. If future shooters were to simply use AI chatbots under assumed names, there wouldn't be much AI companies could do about it, except maybe change their bots to stop offering mindless affirmation. At the same time, there is a move by multiple governments around the world to ban children from using AI. You can't meet that legal requirement without age verification. On the other hand, even Americans don't trust their own corporations with their personal data. People outside of the U.S. are even less trusting thanks to the completely amoral nature of the present U.S. administration and their steadfast opposition to any kind of sensible regulation. The chickens are coming home to roost.