Gamers REVOLT over age verify scheme subjecting users to 'suspicious entity detection'

Chatbot-user selfies are reportedly being analyzed and not only checked for suspiciousness, but to see if they match the faces of any public figures.

Video gamers staged a collective rebellion when they discovered that Discord, the dominant gamer chat platform, had slipped a pilot program into the U.K. user experience that could route personal information to the government via a company called Persona, linked to OpenAI. Discord quickly backtracked, frustrated that new age verification laws in the Anglosphere have made it difficult to find partners that pass user muster. But the controversy rages on.

A group of researchers say they stumbled upon publicly available code in OpenAI that shows an in-depth system meant for analyzing user facial data while also checking to see if the user has hijacked a dead person's identity.

‼️ BREAKING: Researchers have uncovered secret AI surveillance projects linked to KYC provider Persona and OpenAI, sending user data to the US government.

Code references include intelligence program codenames "Project SHADOW" and "Project LEGION."

Analysis of source code… pic.twitter.com/fnmQDgzWH8

— International Cyber Digest (@IntCyberDigest) February 19, 2026