Claude and a Russian passport: who gets banned after ID checks

Claude users from Russia report that their accounts are shut down almost immediately after an identity check in which they showed a Russian international passport. The check runs through the Persona service: the user selects the document’s country, uploads a photo of it and goes through a face scan. According to the reports, the ban lands about a minute after the upload with no explanation, and until the check is completed Claude stops answering requests.

The affected are not only people connecting from Russia through a VPN. A Russian citizen in New Zealand, where Claude is officially available, lived there on a four-year visa and used the paid plan and Claude Code for work. His subscription fee was charged two days before the block. Reddit threads in r/Anthropic describe cases in Georgia and Armenia. Among those banned is a Claude Max subscriber who paid 200 dollars a month for over a year. An email from the security team, posted by a user in Georgia, cites a large number of signals that violate the Usage Policy, with no specific violation named. One user’s appeal was rejected and he was only allowed to export his chats.

The outcome does not depend on the passport alone. Some Russians showed a driver’s license, selected another country and passed. Some Chinese citizens also got through. AI adoption expert Roman Adamenko links the bans to frequent changes of IP address and region caused by VPN use, while Dmitry Antipov points to tighter checks on unverified accounts. Anthropic has not officially commented. Persona stores the document and selfie images, and Anthropic acts as the data controller and can open verification records when it reviews appeals.

There have been similar waves. In May 2026, according to Baza, hundreds of Russian accounts were closed, mostly belonging to IT specialists and entrepreneurs who lost conversations and projects built over months. From October 1, as The Bell reported, blocks hit people who had long logged in through a VPN and entered foreign payment details at sign-up, along with users from Hong Kong. In early summer Anthropic warned it may ask for a passport or ID and a selfie from accounts in countries where Claude is unavailable. According to TechCrunch, the check is offered to accounts the system flags as possibly fraudulent but has not yet blocked.

Russia, Belarus, mainland China and Hong Kong are absent from Anthropic’s list of supported regions, and Anthropic treats use from those places as a breach of its terms. The rules rest on a user’s physical location and the country where a company is registered, and citizenship is not mentioned. In September 2025 the company also cut off organizations more than 50% owned by firms based in unsupported regions.

Source: Meduza