Persona (identity verification service)

Persona Identities, Inc. is an American identity verification company headquartered in San Francisco. The company develops infrastructure for businesses to verify individuals and organizations, manage onboarding, and comply with KYC/AML requirements. Persona is a consumer-facing platform, and uses the backend engine Paravision for the technical verification.

History

Rick Song and Charles Yeh founded Persona in 2018, developing identity infrastructure to help businesses fight fraud.
In 2025, the social media platform Reddit selected Persona to perform age checks for United Kingdom users as part of the Online Safety Act 2023.
Also in 2025, the popular game creation platform Roblox chose Persona to estimate player ages via a facial scan to unlock chat worldwide. The scan was enforced in 2026, stirring up major controversy with the players.

Products and services

Persona’s platform provides document and biometric identity verification, including proprietary selfie "liveness" checks and database-based verification.

Reception and privacy concerns

Persona and other third‑party age verification providers have been cited in broader debates about the privacy and security implications of online age checks. Coverage of Reddit’s UK rollout focused on short photo retention windows and the separation of user account data from verification data, while also highlighting civil liberties concerns about expanding age restrictions online.