Gamers Use Death Stranding to Bypass Discord’s Age Verification: A Digital Privacy Loophole

Death Stranding has ended up kind of involved in this wider conversation about digital privacy and how these age verification things are supposed to work. What happened is, some players from the UK figured out a way to get around Discord’s new age verification method, which was made to stop underage users from entering adult servers. And the trick they used? Just using Sam Porter Bridges’ face from the game’s photo mode. This all started once the UK’s Online Safety Act came into effect and made age checks stricter for 18+ content access.

Photo mode trick bypasses live facial scan

Now, Discord needs users to either upload a valid ID or do a live facial scan where they’re asked to move their mouth or turn their head. But turns out, people noticed they could just go into Death Stranding’s photo mode and adjust Sam’s facial expressions until they matched the scan prompts. You make the game character “perform” the actions instead of using your real face.

Surprisingly, it works. The scan system accepts it. Since the game has such detailed and realistic face animations, the scan part ends up getting fooled. So you get through the age check without handing in any real info.

If a game character can pass something that's meant to verify real people, then clearly something isn't working right. Even though Discord said that the k-ID system doesn’t keep your selfies or ID photos, it’s still supposed to be a secure process. But when even that’s being tricked, then the whole thing feels a bit pointless.

People had already been finding other ways around, like using VPNs to change locations, but this photo mode thing is more direct. It cheats the exact step that’s supposed to be the hardest to fake.

Reactions and legal backdrop

The Online Safety Act, which was, by then, a new law in the UK, was already drawing criticism that claimed it was too extreme. Many privacy-sensitive users did not appreciate the notion that they had to scan their faces or provide ID to chat, or simply access restricted content on Discord. Now it is gaining popularity as a workaround to Death Stranding. It is not a trick, though to some it is perceived as a sort of protest. Individuals do not feel sweet having to present their identity on aspects that ought to be hidden.

Therefore, despite the fact that the prospect of Sam Bridges assisting the players to overcome systems in the real world is a bit strange, there is a more weighty message. How powerful could something that is created to make people safe be fooled by a video game face? The time has come to put pressure on the legislators and platforms to mend such stuff. Otherwise, people will simply find other ways of going around this. At this time, people have started to wonder just how far is too far due to Death Stranding.

                                                                                   Written By “ Souranil Ghosh- India Today Gaming”