Anthropic’s ID Verification Imperils Chinese Founders
Anthropic's ID verification wall just locked out an entire market. Here's what founders in U.S. adversary nations are doing instead.
Why it matters
Anthropic is tightening compliance controls to block access from China, Russia, and North Korea—forcing developers to switch to competitors like OpenAI. This marks a critical shift in how AI vendors enforce geopolitical restrictions and signals rising pressure on frontier model access globally.
The key facts
6 to knowAnthropic now requires government-issued photo ID and selfie verification for some customers
Policy targets users in U.S. adversary countries: China, Russia, North Korea
Beijing-based AI startup founder's Claude Code access shut down post-announcement
Affected founders pivoting to OpenAI's Codex (which has same restrictions but no ID requirement)
Policy announced last week; enforcement already underway
OpenAI maintains same geographic restrictions without ID verification mechanism
Go to the source
The Informationtheinformation.com
Publisher excerpt: Anthropic has quietly flourished in China thanks to businesses—including big tech firms and startups—circumventing Anthropic’s official restrictions on usage. That may soon change. Anthropic last week started requiring some customers to provide a government-issued photo ID and an image of…