Why Anthropic May Ask You For Your Government ID, Biometric Data

From next month Anthropic may ask its users to upload government issued ID and biometric data while using Claude. The new rule will come into effect from July 8. The company said the move to verify age and identity is aimed at allowing users to appeal flagged accounts for potentially fraudulent activity rather than banning them outright.

"In certain circumstances, we may ask you to verify your age or identity. If you choose to do so, data we will collect includes, depending on the method: an image of your government-issued identity document and the information appearing on it (such as your ID number and date of birth); your image in photo or video form, facial geometry templates (which may be considered 'biometric data' in some jurisdictions); and the result of the verification (for example, whether your age meets the applicable threshold)," Anthropic said in its updated privacy policy.

"This is more than a product policy decision, it seems to be a glimpse into the future of AI governance. As frontier models become increasingly capable, the debate is moving from who can build AI to who should access its most advanced capabilities. Identity verification may help strengthen accountability, but policymakers and companies will need to ensure that security measures do not come at the expense of privacy and user trust," Sagar Vishnoi, co-founder of Future Shift Labs, told NDTV.

"We strive to prioritize the protection of personal data, and comply with all applicable privacy laws," Anthropic said.

Cyber security expert and founder of CyberPeace Foundation, Vineet Kumar  told NDTV: "As AI systems become more capable and consequential, identity verification may increasingly be used as a trust and accountability mechanism. However, collecting government IDs and biometric data creates a significant concentration of sensitive information, raising questions around necessity, proportionality, storage safeguards, and redress mechanisms. Trust in AI will depend not only on preventing misuse of these systems, but equally on ensuring that user verification measures do not create new privacy and security risks."

Anthropic Denies Mythos Link

Thariq Shihipar from Anthropic's Claude Code team on X clarified that the move was "unrelated to the Fable or Mythos rollout." Earlier this month, Anthropic disabled public access to its most powerful AI model, Fable 5, just three days after its release.

The US government ordered Anthropic to immediately revoke access for foreign nationals (including those employed by Anthropic) to two of its most powerful AI models - Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5 - citing national security concerns. To comply, Anthropic went ahead and suspended access for all. The directive was to revoke access for all foreign nationals, whether inside the US or outside.

Ever since, the company has been in active talks with the Trump administration to restore Fable 5 and Mythos. A group of cybersecurity leaders have also asked the US government to lift its ban, saying the move could help US adversaries more than it hurts them. More than 100 cybersecurity experts and leaders from companies including Adobe and Nvidia told the government in a letter that Anthropic's Mythos models are "quite good" at finding flaws in software and weaponizing exploits - but they are "not uniquely good at these tasks."

The Trump-Anthropic Relationship Saga

In the meantime, a US official told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the Mythos model had identified vulnerabilities in highly sensitive and secure US government computer systems during a testing exercise.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter, said Anthropic had teamed up with US intelligence agencies to conduct tests using the company's Mythos model. It had identified certain vulnerabilities within hours, but that does not mean the model was able to exploit them within that time, the official said.

The testing was done through an Anthropic initiative called Project Glasswing, which brought together tech giants and other companies in hopes of securing the world's critical software from "severe" fallout that the Mythos model could pose to public safety, national security and the economy.

In a recent interview to Axios, when asked if President Trump viewed Anthropic, or its CEO Dario Amodei, as a threat to national security, Trump said: "Well, not now, but a week ago, maybe." Trump said that Amodei responded to the administration's export control directive "very quickly" and "responsibly." The two recently met at the G7 Summit, where Trump said of Amodei: "seems like a nice guy, smart guy".

Anthropic and the US government have had a complicated relationship. It has been locked in a standoff with the Trump administration for refusing to allow its technology to potentially be used for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, leading the Pentagon to cut contracts with the company.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently revealed companies testing Mythos had warned it was a "super weapon" and said using it should require a "gun license." 

"Some of the early companies that we gave this to said things like -- this is a super weapon, you should have to own a gun license to use it; please don't release this," Amodei said in a Bloomberg documentary.

Fable 5 is built on Anthropic's underlying model Mythos, which the company previewed in April and kept it away from mass release because it was deemed too powerful amid concerns that bad actors could use it to hack critical infrastructure such as banking systems or build bioweapons. According to the company, Mythos was able to identify flaws in every major operating system and web browser it tested, some of these vulnerabilities were reportedly lying undetected for decades. Hence, the company launched a controlled program called Project Glasswing, sharing it with around 50 vetted organisations, including Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and CrowdStrike, to utilise for defensive cybersecurity work.