June 28, 2022 – Meta, formerly known as Facebook Inc., is testing new options to verify age on its popular image-based social networking platform Instagram. The company, which also owns WhatsApp and Snapchat, has repeatedly been called out for failing to enforce its age restriction of 13 years for users to be eligible to sign up for an account across its platforms.
Meta is introducing the new age verification tools in order to provide age-appropriate experiences to users, according to an official blog post.
“Starting today, we’re testing new options for people on Instagram to verify their age, starting with people based in the US,” reads the statement. “If someone attempts to edit their date of birth on Instagram from under the age of 18 years or over, we’ll require them to verify their age using one of the three options: upload their ID [introduced in 2019], record a video selfie or ask mutual friends to verify their age. We’re testing this so we can make sure teens and adults are in the right experience for their age group.”
Meta is partnering with a third-party company, Yoti, which specialises in online age verification by offering “privacy-preserving ways”. It will use an AI tool developed by Yoti that estimates age by scanning faces. Since users will now have the option to upload a video selfie for age verification by Instagram, Meta will share these images with Yoti, which will then analyse users’ facial features to estimate their age. According to Meta, Yoti will delete the image after sharing its estimate and will not be able to recognise a user’s identity.
The other option, social vouching, allows users to ask their mutual friends to confirm their age. The person vouching for their friend must be 18 years old and not be vouching for anyone else at that time. Meta will require three persons for social vouching. After a user selects three mutual friends, they will receive a request from the platform to confirm the user’s age and will need to respond within three days.
“Understanding someone’s age online is a complex, industry-wide challenge,” states Meta. “We want to work with others in our industry, and with governments, to set clear standards for age verification online. Many people, such as teens, don’t always have access to the forms of ID that make age verification clear and simple. As an industry, we have to explore novel ways to approach the dilemma of verifying someone’s age when they don’t have an ID.”
Earlier this month, Instagram announced that it was rolling out measures to boost child safety by allowing parents and guardians to set limits on children’s scrolling on Instagram. Young users would also see nudges to explore other subjects if they were found to be spending too much time on similar content.
