Rick Song and Charles Yeh founded Persona in 2018, developing identity infrastructure to help businesses fight fraud. [4]
Source Code Leak
On February 16, 2026, security researchers published a post detailing findings from a persona-owned web server with 53 MB of publicly exposed, now removed source code. [11] The researchers found exposed backends for integrations with OpenAI, FedRAMP, and Fivecast ONYX, an AI-based Open-source intelligence platform purchased by the DHS to provide surveillance services to ICE and CBP. [12] [13] [11] Persona's CEO has stated "We do not want our technology to be used by ICE or the government for any surveillance purposes." [14]
They note the OpenAI integration seems to have been running since November 2023, [11] with OpenAI only publicly announcing "Verified Organization" requirements in April of 2025, meaning OpenAI's watchlist infrastructure was operating in some capacity 18 months before it was publicly known. [15] OpenAI updated their privacy policy on November 4th, 2024 to include a section stating they may use information provided to them to "establish your identity or age." [16]
The researchers found that Persona has a module to directly file case data from any individual verified on the Persona platform to FinCEN and FINTRAC, and had specifically mentioned names of individual public-private partnerships operated by FINTRAC. [11] It was previously known that Persona had acquired FedRAMP Authorized status. [17] They note the same codebase is used for both verifying customer identities and filing data with the government. [11]
The researchers state the Persona platform was found to keep 13 types of tracking lists, for government ID numbers, IP addresses, names, phone numbers, emails, geolocation data, browser and device fingerprints, facial data, countries, selfie backgrounds, as well as arbitrary fields and strings. [17] [14]
The researchers provided a list of vendors used for various purposes, such as Chainalysis for crypto address screening, Equifax for credit and identity data, and OpenAI for "AI copilot (productivity)", among others. They noted a distinct lack of Palantir, Clearview, NEC, or any other surveillance vendors, only including KYC/AML compliance businesses and productivity tools. [11]
They found Persona compares all uploaded selfies and profile data to politicians and world leaders. [11] [14] They also found Persona will sometimes label faces as "suspicious", though the methodology is not stated. AI-based identification systems are commonly criticized for misidentifying, flagging, and causing false positives, especially on darker skin tones. [18]
The leaked verification pipeline showed a total of 269 different checks performed during the verification process, to accomplish features such as comparing a face with an ID photo, determining if you look like a public figure, identifying if you have the same background as another user, recording if you wear glasses, and performing liveness detection, among others. [11] [14] [19]
Questions were raised regarding inconsistent retention limits, with OpenAI stating biometric data would be stored for "up to a year", while the leaked source code showed facial data retention set to a max of 3 years, and government IDs being retained permanently. [11] Persona's Privacy Policy states personal data is automatically deleted "as soon as processing is complete and an outcome has been determined", though they also state its business customers can retain customer data for "longer periods as necessary to detect, investigate, or prevent suspicious or fraudulent activity." [20]
