Claude is now 18+ only — flagged accounts locked until you verify age
Anthropic is actively enforcing its 18+ rule: suspected-minor accounts get disabled until a Yoti selfie or ID clears them, and the privacy backlash is loud.
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18+, and now actually enforced
Claude's apps have required users to be 18 since launch, but Anthropic has moved from a signup checkbox to active monitoring: accounts that show signs of underage use get flagged and disabled until age is verified. It's an account-level gate, so anything tied to your Claude login is in scope.
How to clear it: a Yoti selfie or your ID
Age assurance runs through Yoti — a selfie for facial age estimation with no document, a government ID upload, or an existing Yoti "over-18" credential. Yoti deletes the images after the check and Anthropic sees only pass/fail, but you stay locked out until you pass.
What trips the flag, and the appeal
Anthropic hasn't published exact triggers; reporting says enforcement leans on age signals in your own chat history rather than blanket checks. A wrongly-flagged account gets a verification link in the disable email, and passing age assurance restores access.
The backlash: biometrics, and Persona
The identity-verification expansion reportedly leans on biometric vendor Persona, backed by Founders Fund, and the response has been loud — Reddit threads call it a privacy betrayal. Discord hit the same wall this year and delayed its own age-check rollout.
Why builders should plan for it
If you ship Claude to end users, an under-18 audience is now off-limits by ToS, and your own dev account can get gated mid-project until you verify. Treat the ID step as a KYC-style dependency, not an edge case.