Anthropic is moving toward identity verification for some Claude users. According to a new version of the company’s privacy policy, users may be asked to upload a government-issued ID, take a selfie, or submit a video as part of an account verification process. The policy takes effect on July 8.
As reported by TechCrunch, the change was framed as an update to Anthropic’s appeals process. When an account is flagged for potentially fraudulent activity, users would now have the option to verify their identity rather than face an outright ban. Anthropic spokesperson Michael Aciman pointed to an X post from Anthropic’s Thariq Shihipar, who said the policy affects only a “small subset” of users.
But the timing is hard to ignore. The update arrives while Anthropic is navigating a tense relationship with the Trump administration, raising questions about whether stricter identity controls are also a way to show the White House that the company knows who is using its tools.
The new policy says Anthropic will collect the following when verification is triggered:
- A photo scan of a government-issued passport or driver’s license
- A selfie photo or video
- A “face geometry template” derived from that image, which is considered legally protected biometric data in some states, including Illinois
- A record of the verification result, such as whether the user has reached a certain age
Anthropic has required users to be 18 or older since it launched Claude. Earlier this year, it introduced age-verification checks to comply with state and national laws. Identity verification was announced separately but only recently appeared in the company’s published privacy policy.
Anthropic uses San Francisco-based Persona as its identity-checking provider. The company says users “may see a verification prompt when accessing certain capabilities, as part of our routine platform integrity checks, or other safety and compliance measures.” Anthropic controls how long Persona retains users’ documents, but the spokesperson did not confirm when that data gets deleted. For comparison, Roblox, another Persona customer, says it deletes user images immediately after processing.
Persona is not without controversy. The firm is backed by Founders Fund, the investment firm co-founded by Peter Thiel, who also has ties to Anthropic. When Discord selected Persona for its age-verification rollout earlier this year, the backlash from users over those Thiel connections was strong enough that Discord reversed the decision. Persona can also be subject to U.S. government demands for data stored on its servers, which adds another layer of concern for privacy-conscious users.
The broader context matters here. Anthropic has been at odds with the Trump administration for months. The Department of Defense designated the company a “supply chain risk,” reportedly because Anthropic refused to allow its technology to be used for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. More recently, Trump officials pushed Anthropic to pull its latest cybersecurity models after claims that a jailbreak could bypass the models’ safety guardrails. Reports also point to personality clashes between Anthropic leadership and White House officials as a contributing factor in the strained relationship.
Anthropic says it may require identity verification for several reasons, including account administration, fraud prevention, enforcement of its terms of service, and investigating security issues. Whether this policy stays narrow or expands over time will likely depend on how the company’s regulatory and political situation develops in the months ahead.