Anthropic Requires Some Claude Users Verify Age Or Identity Starting July 8

Anthropic says some Claude users may be asked to verify their age or identity beginning July 8, with the company’s updated privacy policy stating the requirement may be applied “in certain circumstances.”

“Last year, Apple debuted Digital ID on iPhone, allowing users to use their US passport as identification in Apple Wallet”

9to5Mac

The policy update, published in early June and set to take effect on July 8, says users may be asked to upload a photo of a passport or driver’s license, along with a selfie or video and a digital image of the face as biometric data.

9to5Mac

Anthropic says it will retain a record of the verification result, including whether a certain age has been reached, and it says the identity verification uses the Persona service.

TechCrunch reports that Anthropic says the move is to allow users to appeal having their account flagged for potentially fraudulent activity rather than outright banning them, and it cites a Thariq Shihipar post saying the change applies only to a “small subset of users” whose accounts are flagged but not outright banned.

Anthropic’s privacy policy says that depending on the verification method used, it may collect images of government-issued identity documents, information such as dates of birth and ID numbers, and photographs or videos of users.

The policy also says it may collect “facial geometry templates,” and Tech Times reports that Anthropic acknowledges these “may be considered biometric data in some jurisdictions.”

CyberInsider

Gadget Review says the process involves one physical ID, one selfie, and a third-party vendor called Persona Identities handling the process, and it adds that Persona stores the images on its own servers.

Tech Times reports that Anthropic’s checks have been running in limited form since April 14, 2026, when Anthropic quietly launched biometric ID verification through Persona Identities for what it called “a few use cases,” and that the June update formalizes the practice across all consumer tiers.

The July 8 identity-check policy change arrives as Anthropic’s access to advanced models remains entangled with U.S. government actions, including a Trump administration export control directive that temporarily blocked foreign users’ access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5.

“Midway through a coding session or a research deep-dive, a prompt appears on your screen: upload a government-issued photo ID and take a live selfie”

Gadget Review

Techzine Global reports that in an Axios interview Trump said, “Well, not now, but a week ago, maybe,” when asked if he considered Anthropic or CEO Dario Amodei a security risk, and it says the directive ordered Anthropic to block foreign users’ access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5.

Techzine Global also says Anthropic is updating its privacy policy and informed users in an email that they will need to verify their identity when using Claude Free, Pro, and Max in certain cases, while Trump said, “But I’m not sure I have to do that.”

In parallel, TechCrunch frames the identity verification as part of Anthropic’s effort to placate the Trump administration amid an ongoing standoff over who gets access to the company’s AI tools, and it quotes Shihipar saying the identity verification policy update is “It’s unrelated to the Fable or Mythos rollout.”