Anthropic Introduces ID Checks for Claude Users in Limited Scenarios

Anthropic has begun rolling out identity verification for Claude users in select situations, requiring a government‑issued ID and a selfie to confirm identity. The company says verification will only appear when accessing certain capabilities or when activity suggests potential fraud or abuse. The move has sparked backlash, with users questioning the need for ID checks and criticizing the use of Persona, a verification provider linked to investors associated with surveillance technologies. Anthropic emphasizes that IDs are handled by Persona, not stored by Anthropic, and will not be used for model training or shared externally.

Editor's Note: Although the official motives are security and abuse prevention, the real reason for the tightened controls is most likely linked to competitors’ attempts to “distill” Anthropic’s models. Through massive requests from fake accounts, they extract Claude’s reasoning patterns to train rival systems, which forces the introduction of strict KYC procedures to filter out bot networks.

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