Meta is extending to Instagram users worldwide the AI technology it uses to find teens who have entered an adult birthday and move them into Teen Account protections. The company is continuing the same rollout on Facebook and plans to launch similar technology globally on Threads later this year.
Teen Accounts on Instagram, Facebook and Messenger automatically limit who can contact teens, the content they see and their time on the apps. Meta says some teens may misrepresent their age to reach experiences they are too young for, and that it uses AI to find suspected teens even when they give an adult birthday. With the expansion, “millions more teens across the world who use Instagram will receive these built-in protections, even if they’ve misrepresented their age,” the company said.
In Australia, Meta has begun using Apple’s age-range signal. When a parent sets up a smartphone for a teen, the parent can have the app store confirm the user’s age and assign an age range. Each time the teen downloads an app, Apple passes that range to the developer, confirming whether the teen meets the app’s age requirement.
Meta said it is using the signal voluntarily and that teens will receive inconsistent protections “as long as collecting it and sharing it remains optional for app stores, and using it remains optional for developers.” The company repeated its support for laws requiring age verification and parental consent at the app store, arguing that one verified signal from a device, shared with every app, is “far more effective and privacy-preserving than asking every platform to verify age individually.” Age estimates from developers such as Meta could then serve as a backstop, with corrections fed back to the app store for all the apps a teen uses.
The expansion builds on commitments in Meta’s agreement with 52 bipartisan attorneys general. Under it, the company says it is investing in stronger technology to catch accounts that may belong to children under 13 and to identify 13- to 17-year-olds who give an adult birthday. Meta also called on TikTok and YouTube to adopt the same practices.
This month, parents in the U.S. will begin seeing an in-feed video on Instagram explaining the approach. It links to an article by Larry Magid, president and CEO of ConnectSafely, describing Meta’s multi-layered age assurance, which includes keeping children under 13 off its platforms and placing teens in age-appropriate experiences.
Sources: Meta
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
