Claude, a product of AI company Anthropic, recently launched a mandatory identity verification mechanism that requires some users to hold original government-issued physical documents for real-time photo verification, causing widespread controversy. According to the KYC (Know Your Customer) rules announced by Claude, only original passports, driver's licenses or ID cards are accepted for verification, and copies, scanned copies, digital certificates or temporary ID cards are not accepted. The verification process is performed by third-party vendor Persona and typically takes no more than 5 minutes.
However, many users have discovered that identity verification is not a pass to continue using the service, but instead becomes an early warning sign that the account will be blocked. Claude's official FAQ specifically set up an answer entry for "Why was my account blocked after verification?" and clearly listed the reasons for the suspension, including repeated violations of usage policies, creating accounts from unsupported locations, violating terms of service, and use by persons under 18 years of age.
The privacy terms of Persona, a third-party provider that performs verification, show that it has 17 sub-processors that may have access to user data and allow the data to be used to improve anti-fraud capabilities, which means that user ID data may be used to train Persona’s own model.
This verification mechanism also exposed Claude’s 18-year-old age limit. A user with the online name llm_nerd revealed that his 15-year-old son is a game programmer. He subscribes to the Claude Max service and takes orders for development through AI programming. His income exceeds that of his father. However, his account was banned because it was detected by the system as being used by a minor. Anthropic email clearly informed that "it has been detected that your account is being used by children, which violates our regulations." The user received a full month's refund, without deductions for the number of days used.
It is worth noting that the Claude Opus 4.6 model systematically denied its own company’s KYC rules when asked about this. The model points out that Anthropic has three existing layers of protection: credit card verification (bank-grade KYC), behavioral data telemetry monitoring (which can detect abuse patterns), and a real-time content moderation system for the AI model itself. The model believes that static ID photos are the "weakest link" and the "highest risk data asset" in the entire security model. Once leaked, it will harm the user rather than the company, and encourages users to write about the matter and criticize it publicly.
The current minimum usage age for OpenAI and Gemini is 13 years old, while Anthropic is set at 18 years old. Some netizens joked that since the account will be blocked and refunded if a minor is detected, there may be a loophole of "claiming that a minor is using prostitution tokens for free at the end of the month."