Tech Desk 
Jul 15, 2025
Reddit has announced that users in the United Kingdom (UK) are now required to verify their age as a way to prevent children from accessing inappropriate content.
The new requirement comes after the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) introduced new steps for platforms to take to block children from encountering harmful content, like pornography and material promoting self-harm.
Notably, Reddit will use the third-party service Persona to confirm a user’s age, requiring users to submit a picture of their government-issued identity documents or take a selfie.
Reddit stated that it will not have access to these images, and will only save the person’s verification status and their date of birth.
Restricted content to be hidden from users under 18 includes sexually explicit posts, anything that encourages suicide and disordered eating, and posts that spread hate against other people based on their race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability, and gender, among other violent and harmful content.
In its announcement, the company stated: “Reddit was built on the principle that you shouldn’t need to share personal information to participate in meaningful discussions.”
“While we still don’t want to know who you are on Reddit, there are certainly situations where it would be helpful if we knew a little more about you,” it added.
Critics have long warned of the security and privacy risks associated with private companies gathering and storing large amounts of people’s identity documents.
According to Reddit, it has “more to come about that later,” indicating the platform is planning to crack down on AI bot accounts.
