Meta announces new age-checking measures for young Instagram users

Meta is trying to relieve pressure from lawmakers to protect teenage users from harmful content by making it much harder for them to lie about their age on Instagram.

Teenagers who attempt to increase the age listed on their account will now have to verify their age by using Yoti’s facial age estimation software for biometric analysis or by uploading an identity document.  The UK-based identity verification company began rolling out age estimation on Instagram in mid-2022 and says that  81 percent of teens choose to verify their age through their technology over uploading an identity document.

Meta is also planning to deploy an “adult classifier,” a tool that estimates whether a user is under the age of 18 according to their account data. The software will analyze the types of accounts a user follows and the content they interact with to label “teen” accounts and automatically apply more restrictive privacy settings. It will also look for suspicious behavior such as creating an Instagram account using the same email address but with a different birthday and review the phone’s unique device ID, according to Bloomberg.

Accounts with a “teen” label will not be able to lift restrictions without authorization from a parent. The social media giant did not share the accuracy rates of the adult classifier but promised to introduce an appeal system.

Instagram introduced a new account category for teenagers in September amid rising criticism from parents and lawsuits from dozens of state attorneys general. The account label is still being rolled out in the U.S. and several other countries.

For now, teens lying about their age has been less of a problem than the company expected, Meta says. The company, however, is still hoping that U.S. legislators will shift the responsibility of performing age verification for Instagram and other third-party apps to app stores such as Google Play or Apple’s App Store.

Yoti becomes AI case study

Meanwhile, Yoti is receiving more attention from industries other than social media. The UK-based firm was recently featured by technology trade association techUK as an AI adoption case study.

Aside from Instagram, its facial age estimation software has been used by Facebook Dating to ensure that only adults can sign up for the service, by Epic Games for its parental verification and consent tool Kids Web Services and by OnlyFans for ensuring users are over 18. Other clients include Sony PlayStation, French social networking app Yubo, adult site XHamster and game developer Lockwood Publishing.

The company has completed over 650 million age checks and was declared a “highly effective” age check method by the UK’s telecommunications watchdog Ofcom.

The case study also notes that Yoti faces barriers. This includes ensuring fairness for different ages, skin tones and genders, a diverse dataset collected in line with GDPR and ensuring the technology is explainable and recognized by regulators.

Article Topics

age verification  |  face biometrics  |  Instagram  |  Meta  |  selfie biometrics  |  social media  |  Yoti