Anthropic rolls out identity verification on Claude

Category: AI
Status: confirmed
Sources: Claude support article, Anthropic privacy policy, HN
Summary: Anthropic published a support article describing identity verification for Claude users. A verification prompt may appear when accessing certain capabilities or as part of routine platform-integrity checks, and asks for a government-issued photo ID plus a live selfie. The third-party vendor Persona collects and holds the ID and selfie, not Anthropic; Anthropic states the data is used only to confirm identity and not to train models. The article does not state a retention period or the consequence of declining.
Comments: HN commenters report OpenAI runs a similar check and permanently locks out accounts that fail it, with no retry; one notes China mandated real-name verification for generative AI in 2023, creating a two-tier verified/unverified access model. Others framed the move as accelerating adoption of local models.
Why it matters: A biometric ID gate on a major coding and assistant platform changes onboarding and access risk for individual developers and teams.
Follow-up: Watch for the documented verification trigger, the biometric-data retention period, and the refusal consequence.