Opus 4.7 Expected This Week While Claude Introduces Identity Verification—What It Means for Users

Good news: Opus 4.7 may arrive this week

The Information published an exclusive on April 14 reporting that Anthropic plans to release Opus 4.7 as early as this week, following the February launch of Opus 4.6. Minor version updates typically add capability fixes and cost optimizations, but Anthropic historically improves coding, long‑context handling, and agent planning in such releases.

Alongside Opus 4.7, Anthropic will launch an AI design tool that turns a single natural‑language prompt into a complete deliverable—websites, landing pages, presentations, or even runnable product prototypes. The tool targets both developers and non‑technical users, positioning itself against Gamma (PPT generation), Google Stitch (UI design), and web‑generation services such as v0, Lovable, and Bolt.

Internal code‑base references (Capybara, Tengu) leaked in commit messages suggest possible variant names, though analysis of earlier leaks indicates Capybara likely refers to a Claude 4.6 variant and Tengu to an internal Claude Code product, not necessarily Opus 4.7.

Anthropic has recently added an internal policy forbidding commit messages or PR descriptions from containing unreleased model codenames or version numbers (e.g., opus‑4‑7, sonnet‑4‑8). This red line supports the credibility of the 4.7 naming leak.

Performance-wise, Opus 4.6 showed a slight slowdown on some benchmarks—dubbed a “67% thinking drop”—which Anthropic may have left intentionally to reserve compute for the larger jump in Opus 4.7. In other words, 4.6 paved the way, and 4.7 delivers the real upgrade.

Competitive pressure is high: OpenAI recently released GPT‑5.4 Cyber, a model focused on defensive security, directly challenging Claude’s code‑security and agent‑security capabilities. Launching Opus 4.7 now aligns with that market timing.

Bad news: Claude starts identity verification

On April 14 (Pacific Time), Claude’s help center added a page titled “Identity Verification on Claude.” The rollout is described as “rolled out for a few use cases,” meaning verification is triggered only in specific scenarios.

Three trigger conditions are listed: using certain features, standard integrity checks by the platform, or security/compliance reasons. In practice, the verification pop‑up currently affects Max‑subscription users with high usage, anomalous call patterns, or geographic jumps; ordinary Pro users and API developers see it far less often.

The verification process is handled by Persona Identities, a long‑standing identity‑verification provider. It takes about five minutes and requires a government‑issued physical ID (passport, driver’s license, state/province ID, or national ID) and a device with a camera for a live selfie. Scanned copies, screenshots, digital IDs, or temporary paper documents are not accepted.

Anthropic states that the submitted documents and selfies are stored encrypted by Persona, never reside on Anthropic servers, and are not used to train models or sold to third parties. This wording follows standard industry templates, leaving the trust decision to users.

The rationale given by Anthropic includes anti‑abuse, policy enforcement, and legal compliance—common justifications for KYC measures. Community backlash focuses on the fact that the verification primarily harms users who are already outside Claude’s official support regions and who often rely on workarounds (foreign phone numbers, shared subscriptions) to access the service.

Many users obtain Claude through unconventional means, and the new passport requirement threatens their continued access. For users without a government‑issued ID, future interaction with Claude could become impossible.

Another reported motive is to curb the resale of Max subscriptions. Over the past year, open‑source projects (e.g., CLIProxyAPI, meridian) have bridged Claude Max subscriptions to OpenAI‑compatible APIs, allowing tools like Cline, Aider, and Cursor to “free‑ride” on Max quota. Anthropic listed “third‑party harness use of Max quota” as a violation on April 4, and the KYC rollout ten days later appears consistent with that enforcement effort.

Nevertheless, the broader impact extends beyond resale concerns; any user whose location or usage pattern is flagged may be prompted for verification, and lacking the required documents could result in loss of access.