Twitch is now requiring some new affiliate streamers to verify their identity before receiving their first payout, according to user reports. The process involves submitting a government-issued photo ID and a selfie through Persona, a third-party identity verification service. So far, no alternative method has been offered. Twitch has confirmed the requirement applies to streamers whose first payout is on hold.
On its own, mandatory ID verification on top of information Twitch already holds is worth raising an eyebrow at. But the bigger concern is the company it’s chosen to handle that verification.
Related—What are the differences between being a Twitch Affiliate and Partner?
What is Twitch’s Persona verification?
Persona isn’t a straightforward ID checker. The company has received significant investment from Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel—a firm with deep roots in government surveillance infrastructure. More troublingly, hackers recently discovered Persona’s frontend code was publicly accessible, exposing details of how the system works under the hood. What they found goes well beyond simple identity and age checks.
According the the hacker group’s findings, the code “compares your selfie to watchlist photos using facial recognition, screens you against 14 categories of adverse media (from mentions of terrorism to espionage), and tags reports with codenames from active intelligence programs consisting of public-private partnerships.”
Twitch not the only platform using Persona
Twitch isn’t the first major platform to lean on Persona. Discord recently ran what it described as an “experiment” on U.K. users as part of its age verification rollout, with those users’ data being processed by Persona. The move drew significant backlash and sent many users hunting for alternatives. The situations aren’t identical—Discord’s experiment affected users broadly, while Twitch’s requirement is limited to a subset of new affiliates—but the pattern of Persona quietly embedding itself across major platforms is becoming a concern for privacy-conscious gamers.
Related—Discord’s new age-lock system rolls out in March and users are pushing back
For now, the practical impact on Twitch is narrow. Most streamers won’t hit this requirement, and those who do are presumably motivated enough by the payout to comply. But it sets a precedent, and precedents have a tendency to expand beyond their initial scope rather quickly.
