Instagram will use AI worldwide to spot teens who claim to be adults

Meta said on 9 November that it is expanding its artificial intelligence (AI) age-estimation technology on Instagram worldwide, to find more teenagers and place them under its Teen Account protections, TechCrunch reported.

The company said the tool looks for people it suspects are teens even when they have given an adult birthday.

How it works

The system looks through whole profiles for clues, such as birthday posts or mentions of school grades, in posts, comments, bios and captions, according to TechCrunch. It also studies photos and videos for visual signs, such as a person’s height or bone structure.

Accounts it flags are moved into Teen Accounts, which come with stricter settings:

• Accounts are private by default.
• Teens can get direct messages only from people they follow or are already connected to.
• Harmful comments are hidden.

Meta is also rolling the tool out on Facebook, and plans a similar global launch on Threads later this year.

Why now

Meta faces many lawsuits accusing its apps of harming teenagers. In August, it reached settlements worth up to $18 billion with nearly every US state and territory, and agreed to get better at identifying teens and children under 13, TechCrunch reported.

“We’ll continue to do our part to proactively ensure teens are in age-appropriate experiences on our apps,” Meta said in a blog post.

What it means in India

Meta did not list which countries the expansion covers beyond saying it is worldwide. In India, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 requires companies to get verifiable consent from a parent before processing the personal data of anyone under 18.

What’s next

Parents in the US will start seeing a video in their Instagram feeds explaining the change, Meta said. It has not given dates for other countries.