I’m a blind creator, and I want to share my experience with Patreon’s age-verification process because it created a serious accessibility barrier.

Patreon required me to photograph my government-issued passport and take a selfie. The process depended heavily on visual positioning and instructions, making it extremely difficult for me to complete independently.

I eventually completed the verification, but Patreon then disabled my creator page after incorrectly classifying me as under 18. I am 33 years old, and the government ID I submitted confirms that I am an adult.

I contacted Patreon’s accessibility team and requested a manual review and restoration of my creator page. I also contacted its privacy team to cancel a pending account-deletion request. So far, I have received no response from a human representative and no confirmation that the deletion request was cancelled.

I understand why Patreon needs to verify creators’ ages. My concern is that the verification process was inaccessible, the result was incorrect, and there was no obvious way to obtain a prompt human review before my page was disabled.

Has anyone else, particularly another blind or visually impaired creator, experienced a similar problem? Were you able to obtain an accessible verification alternative or a manual review?

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[–] [S] 1 point 1 month ago

Thank you for the detailed and thoughtful advice. I appreciate you taking the time to explain these options.

Yes, I used “Disabled Access” when contacting Patreon’s Accessibility team. I also contacted Trust & Safety using the same email address connected to my Patreon account. The Privacy team has now confirmed that my account-deletion request was cancelled.

Trust & Safety has finally responded, but they asked me to upload my government-issued identification again and provide another selfie while holding it. That is essentially the same visually dependent process that caused the accessibility problem and incorrectly classified me as under 18.

I have replied requesting a manual review of the information already submitted or a genuinely accessible verification method with direct assistance. I have also explained that I will not upload my identification again until Patreon explains why the original submission cannot be reviewed and how the repeated process will be made accessible.

I am located in Iceland. Thank you again—your comment was helpful, and I wanted to clarify that I have now tried the official Accessibility and Trust & Safety routes.

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