Meta details plans on AI-powered age identification for Instagram
A few months ago, Meta announced it would actively look for teens pretending to be adults in early 2025. The announcement was followed by the company introducing Teen Accounts on Instagram in September.
A report by Bloomberg says that Meta will use an AI-based "adult classifier" tool to identify teens on Instagram. The tool will search for potential teen accounts based on usage history and user profile.
Allison Hartnett, Meta's director of product management for youth and social impact, told Bloomberg that the tool will separate users into two brackets - Over or under 18 years old. The tool will be able to see a person's profile, follower list and the content they engage with to make the classification.
Users below 18 will automatically be migrated into teen accounts regardless of the age displayed on their profile. Users aged 16 and 17 can manage their privacy settings, but users below 16 will require parental consent to change settings.
Meta will also make it harder for users to lie about their age on the platform. It will automatically flag suspicious activity, such as using the same email address to create accounts with different birth dates. Meta can also check a phone's unique ID to analyze who is operating the profile.
Teens who want to update their age on the platform will need to provide formal identification. They can use a driver's licence or a video selfie that will be analyzed by a third-party service, Yoti. Meta says they will scrub the images from their servers after identification.
