Texas Court Orders Discord to Extend UK-Style Age Verification to State Users

An agreed temporary injunction signed by a Collin County judge requires Discord to extend the age-verification system it built for the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act to every user in Texas within 90 days, according to a copy of the order obtained by Reclaim The Net. The order remains in effect until final judgment and is enforceable by contempt, with Discord required to provide confidential progress reports to the Texas Attorney General’s Office every 30 days until it complies. [1]

The injunction allows Discord to identify Texas users from data it already holds rather than collect new categories of personal information. Under the order, opening or keeping a Discord account in Texas can require a face scan or government ID for users who are not age-assured.

Texas Court Order Requires Age-Assurance for Discord Users

The injunction requires Discord to route messages from strangers into a separate request inbox and to block sensitive content for Texas teenagers unless the platform confirms the user is an adult. The order also requires Discord to close adult-only spaces to users who have not completed age assurance, according to the attorney general’s office.

The state said these are the protections Discord already provides British children under the Online Safety Act and withheld from Texas. The UK law has led other platforms to introduce facial-recognition checks; Spotify, for example, began requiring UK users to complete age verification through the Yoti app or risk account deletion within 90 days. [6]

Injunction Terms and Compliance Requirements

Discord may ask the court for more time if it demonstrates the 90-day deadline is not feasible. The order states that confidential progress reports are due every 30 days until Discord has complied, and that the injunction remains in force through final judgment.

The order directs Discord to apply its existing age-assurance system to Texas accounts using data the company already holds, rather than requiring users to submit new categories of personal information. Critics of similar age-verification mandates have described them as building “the machinery of online identity checks” into law. [4]

Age-Assurance System Details

Discord’s published account states that more than 90 percent of its users are never asked to confirm their age, that facial age estimation runs on the user’s own phone, and that identity documents go to a third-party vendor rather than to Discord. Texas’s expert told the court that extending Discord’s existing safety features to the state was “just a matter of turning it on for Texas.” [1]

Discord witnesses testified that the company operates the age-assurance system in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Brazil. In Texas, Discord has continued to rely on a self-reported birthday at signup, a fact the company did not dispute for the order. Apple and Google, which are subject to a separate Texas app store age verification law, have warned that such requirements may erode user privacy. [7]

Discord’s Safety Record and Rollout

Attorney General Ken Paxton called the ruling a historic victory. “Discord built a platform where adult predators could hunt Texas children, then looked parents in the eye and told them it was safe,” Paxton said in a statement. His office said Discord submitted 489,782 reports of suspected child sexual exploitation to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in 2025. Under cross-examination, Discord’s lawyers said those reports largely involved the company flagging crimes it found on its own platform.

Discord announced in February 2026 that it would roll out its protections worldwide, with a United States launch weeks away. The company later said the rollout would wait until the second half of 2026. The order’s age-based account structure reflects broader design considerations for children’s products, a subject examined in “Designing for Kids: Creating for Playing, Learning and Growing.” [11]

Legal Context and Next Steps

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the lawsuit on May 22, 2026. The complaint alleges Discord enabled child predators, deceived parents, and violated the state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and it asks the court to impose mandatory age verification under the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act. [2] New Jersey sued before Texas, and Nevada, Indiana, and Arkansas have taken separate legal action. A trial on the merits is scheduled for June 2027, where Texas will seek civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation.

In a related case, a federal judge in December 2025 blocked Texas’s App Store Accountability Act, SB 2420, ruling that the age-verification mandate likely violated the First Amendment. [5] The Supreme Court later allowed Texas to enforce the law while legal challenges proceed. [3] The UK Online Safety Act, which underpins the Discord order, has been criticized for imposing “vague and burdensome requirements” on online platforms. [8] Connecticut, Nebraska, and Utah have also advanced social media regulations aimed at minors, according to reporting on state-level digital ID mandates. [9] The case sits within a broader pattern of policy debates over how new technology interacts with older legal frameworks. [10]

References

1. Reclaim The Net. “Texas Orders Discord to Run UK-Style Age Checks for State Users”. Reclaim The Net. July 29, 2026.
2. Reclaim The Net. “Texas Sues Discord, Seeks Mandatory Age Verification”. Reclaim The Net. May 27, 2026.
3. Reclaim The Net. “Supreme Court Lets Texas Enforce App Store ID Check Law”. Reclaim The Net. July 8, 2026.
4. Reclaim The Net. “The House Just Voted for KOSA, a Privacy and Free Speech Disaster”. Reclaim The Net. June 30, 2026.
5. NaturalNews.com. “‘Blunt, universal age gate’: Federal judge strikes down sweeping Texas App Store Accountability Act”. NaturalNews.com. December 30, 2025.
6. Laura Harris. “Spotify Rolls Out Facial Recognition Age Checks, Threatens Account Deletion for Noncompliance”. NaturalNews.com. August 4, 2025.
7. Patrick Lewis. “Apple & Google to Comply with Texas Age Verification Law but Warn of Privacy Trade-offs”. NaturalNews.com. October 15, 2025.
8. Willow Tohi. “U.K.’s Online Safety Act: A Death Knell for Small Websites and Free Expression”. NaturalNews.com. January 3, 2025.
9. Willow Tohi. “The Path to Digital ID Mandates: How Social Media Regulation Could Reshape Online Privacy”. NaturalNews.com. February 20, 2025.
10. “The Half-life of Policy Rationales: How New Technology Affects Old Policy Issues”.
11. Krystina Castella. “Designing for Kids: Creating for Playing, Learning and Growing”.

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