According to the company’s new privacy policy, Anthropic may require Claude users to verify their age and identity by uploading official documents, such as a passport or driver’s license.
According to the company’s new privacy policy, Anthropic may require Claude users to verify their age and identity by uploading official documents, such as a passport or driver’s license.
The company claims that this move was not made to monitor or block users, but to allow them to easily dispute allegations of potentially fraudulent activity on their account if such a situation arises.
However, TechCrunch believes it is worth recalling that Anthropic is now trying to «pacify the Trump administration amid the ongoing standoff over who will get access to the company’s AI tools.»
At the same time, as evidenced by a new section of the latest privacy policy, which will take effect on July 8, Anthropic may ask a user to confirm their age or identity «under certain circumstances,» without providing specific examples.
The publication also points out that Anthropic has long required users to provide their age to use Claude, and the company implemented age verification earlier this year to comply with requirements in some states and countries. Identity verification has also been announced, but such a requirement was not previously reflected in the company’s privacy policy.
Once this policy is activated, users will be required to upload a scanned photo of a passport or state-issued driver’s license, and Anthropic will also ask to take a selfie or video of the face to obtain a facial geometry template.
Meanwhile, an Anthropic spokesperson, in response to a request from the publication, stated that this technical change apparently only affects a «small group of users» whose accounts are marked as suspected fraud but not blocked completely.
«Anthropic’s identity verification policy was updated on June 17th as part of an appeals process, and this is not related to the release of Fable or Mythos,» he assured.
Anthropic said it is allowed to require users to upload copies of their IDs for a number of reasons — verification to create and administer their Claude account, ensuring compliance with terms of service, preventing fraud and abuse, potential investigations, etc.
At the same time, the publication admits that this step may be one way to deal with various ongoing legal challenges and pressure from the Trump administration.
Previously, dev.ua wrote that Anthropic is urgently blocking access to its flagship AI models Fable 5 and Mythos 5 at the request of the US government.
According to one version, the White House allegedly restricted access to the new Anthropic AI model due to fears that Fable 5 would be hacked by the Chinese.
