Anthropic updates their terms to verify age or identity (opens in new tab)

More signal that the open-weight models should be our destiny as an industry. These proprietary models are being used to usher in more surveillance and gatekeeping across the industry.

This is an updated terms of service, but they've had ID verification for certain accounts and situations for months.

Here is the Wayback Machine archive from April of their identity verification help page: https://web.archive.org/web/20260415064244/https://support.c...

Here's a random Reddit thread from 2 months ago about them rolling out identity verification: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1smr9vs/claude_is...

Here is one random example thread of someone who got caught in identity verification with multiple follow-on comments from people who encountered the same problem, also 2 months old: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeCode/comments/1sx25kd/buyer_b...

Couple years ago the West was complaining about surveillance and scoring system of citizens in China (or was making fun of it)

Seems like US wants to get ahead on this and be #1

Also Sam Altman will love this idea, because he already tried it with Worldcoin

AI companies are in a bit of a double bind here.

Countries such as Canada are in the process of implementing regulations to prevent repeats of the Tumbler Ridge incident. A disturbed person was basically attaboy'd by AI into a mass shooting. The discussions this person had with OpenAI's AI triggered some alarm bells at OpenAI, but they did nothing about them. If future shooters were to simply use AI chatbots under assumed names, there wouldn't be much AI companies could do about it, except maybe change their bots to stop offering mindless affirmation. At the same time, there is a move by multiple governments around the world to ban children from using AI. You can't meet that legal requirement without age verification.

On the other hand, even Americans don't trust their own corporations with their personal data. People outside of the U.S. are even less trusting thanks to the completely amoral nature of the present U.S. administration and their steadfast opposition to any kind of sensible regulation.

The chickens are coming home to roost.

Considering that you need a credit card to pay for the tokens, why does anthropic need to verify your age or identity? Yes, I suppose some kid could steal my credit card, but I've got bigger problems if that happens...

Hmm. giving my personal data away to an American company controlled by us gov that infringes people’s IP and is now using an ID verify by Peter Thiel.

Also, Anthropic will maintain and use data in user identified form if the law does not prohibit such privacy intrusion. At least this is a valid interpretation imho; note the absence of "explicitly" as adverb for "permitted":

  «Where data is de-identified, Anthropic will maintain and use this information in its de-identified form, and will not attempt to re-identify such information, except as permitted by law.»

From their terms: 'Identity and Contact Data: Anthropic collects identifiers, including your name, email address, and phone number when you sign up for an Anthropic account, or to receive information on our Services. We may also collect or generate indirect identifiers (e.g., “USER12345”).'

Too bad we can't contact them if we have issues.

I'm curious if identify verification is a precursor to re-enabling Fable for only US nationals.

Not that I like that route, but may be the only way Anthropic can keep releasing new models with the current administration.

GLM-5.2 has been impressive.

Having my engineers swap over to it from Claude has garnered very little complaint. The lack of multi-modality is a limitation, but using minimax m3 for that isn't super inconvenient.

If Anthropic develops an AGI, it'll be too young to use any Anthropic services.

This feels deeply problematic. I would much prefer, where asked via appropriate legal processes, Anthropic serve over user data to government officials, and potentially suspend access.

Is this new news?

> This policy was published on June 8, 2026 with an effective date of July 8, 2026

If Fable is only for US citizens, presumably that will apply to enterprises as well.

I used fable on some difficult stuff and it was surprisingly good.

It's safe to say that models aren't going to get worse.

Does that mean: US citizens will get an edge in hireability?

Assuming: 1. Non-US companies can't keep up Or 2. That model improvements continue to convince management of productivity improvements

We’ve been in sort of a golden age where massive money is getting pulled in and consumers are getting a great deal. That’s not going to last, and surely surveillance and personal information are going to fit into the formula for success for these companies. It’s very similar to when Google was a brand new search engine.

US regulations on AI is going to make it more and more difficult for EU/UK/everyone else to access these model providers.

At this point it's completely outgrageous that the EU, UK, or even Canada can't put forth the funding to develop their own local AI model industry.

[Dupe]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48618455

That's fine, I already cancelled my subscription after they admitted to using PEFT to selectively and silently make their models dumber when working in certain technical fields.

Maybe they can look at my credit history and see that it's over 18.

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48618455

Reason #1 why I won't be working with their stuff.

I was really hoping we’d have more time before enshittification arrived. But apparently, an old Xeon running Qwen is my destiny.

this was inevitable

that's what my credit card is for

So in practise this means I need to upload my passport to continue using the CLI and the chat?

If programming requires LLM/AI then regulation by government is needed to stop this overreach, which has the primary goal of banning you permanently forever making sure you can never come back to programming, in the event some AI in their system decides you have done something “wrong”.

Hmm, is this a thing for enterprise accounts too? My employer has gone all-in on Claude, but if I get a pop-up that requires me to give my ugly mug to a literal cardinal enemy of the human race Peter Thiel, then I will have to seriously consider switching jobs, because I have some of them silly principles.

They probably don't have much, I guess.

I should be worried about this, but Anthropic's products are a paid product. You can't use them without providing some identifying information, unless you're going out of your way to provide them inaccurate information.

I generally dislike services which require this level of identity verification but also, so far, those have mostly been freemium services and community tools. And I dislike gating those communities.

I'm sure I should have more of a problem with this.

Elon: I will burn 20 years of goodwill I have gathered with the tech community. Sam Altman: I will make sure to increase the price of all semiconductors, so you are not the most hated. Dario: You are not leaving me here alone to be the good guy, so hold my beer.

This is a horrible idea and I’m sure it’ll go very well for them. /s

This is their only option. Someone who is the head of security for a hospital IT department needs access to mythos, and some 17 year old with fraud convictions doesn't.

It's the same reason we require ID for alcohol and gun purchases. Obviously it isn't a perfect system, teens drink but good luck suggesting that 13 year old should be allowed to buy alcohol.