On the first day the new Claude rules took effect, existing users were hit with a wave of KYC pop-ups: some had their accounts banned seconds after passing verification with a Chinese passport.

Beating AI News Flash, November 12: Anthropic's new version of its "Supported Regions Policy" officially took effect. Since the day before, there has been a surge of feedback from Claude users who were asked to complete identity verification (KYC) and subsequently had their accounts banned. This time, even paid old accounts that had been in use for one or two years or even longer were not spared.

Many users reported that they had been using Claude normally when a KYC prompt suddenly appeared, requiring them to upload identification documents and take a selfie. Some had just renewed their subscription a few days earlier, while others were in the middle of using Claude Code when their task execution was interrupted halfway through.

One Max 5x user said that during use, they were suddenly asked to verify their identity. After submitting a Chinese passport and successfully passing verification, their account was immediately banned. Another user passed KYC with a Chinese passport on October 31 and continued using the service normally afterward. On November 12, they were asked to verify again, and after authenticating with the same passport, their account was immediately banned.

However, some users successfully passed verification with a Chinese passport and are still able to use the service normally to this day. The community has therefore begun discussing whether Anthropic applies different risk control standards to different accounts, and whether users may face repeated reviews after passing KYC once.

Anthropic had previously disclosed its identity verification mechanism. In its September security report, the company explicitly stated that once it detects that an account originates from China or another unsupported region, or is involved in unauthorized resale of Claude, identity verification will be triggered, and failure to verify will result in account suspension.

The new policy taking effect today further clarifies the scope of restrictions: users located in unsupported regions, enterprises in China and other unsupported regions, and overseas companies controlled by individuals or enterprises in these regions are all ineligible for use.

The verification process itself also has problems. One Max user said the system required a second identity document but would not allow them to change the incorrectly selected document type, leaving the account unusable. Others reported that the identity verification help page kept redirecting repeatedly, making it impossible to submit requests properly.

As of now, Anthropic has not disclosed how many accounts are involved in this round of identity verification, the actual number of accounts banned, or whether a concentrated review was specifically arranged for November 12.