Officially, you must be at least 13 years old to register on Instagram; but as everyone knows, some do not follow this rule to the letter. The social network can also block your account if you do not give your date of birth. To address concerns from lawmakers and parents, Instagram will now require users who attempt to change their age from under 18 to 18; or over to confirm their age by uploading a photo ID, or asking mutual friends to confirm their age.
Indeed, it is now possible for users who wish to change their age on the social network; to ask three adults to confirm. They will then have to certify to Instagram that the user is well over 18; within three days of the request. However, this is not the only option Instagram is exploring to verify the age of its users.
Introducing new methods for Instagram age verification
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In addition to the photo ID or the guarantors, Instagram will also allow users to take a video selfie. Once sent to Instagram, the social network will share it with Yoti, a British company specializing in age, identity and biometrics verification. Yoti’s artificial intelligence will estimate your age in about 20 minutes based on your facial features; then the video will be deleted.
These new measures will make it possible in particular to prevent teenagers from being able to consult inappropriate content on the platform by changing their age. “When we know if someone is a teenager (13-17), we offer them age-appropriate experiences, like defaulting them to private accounts, preventing unwanted contact from adults it doesn’t know and limit the options advertisers have to reach them with adsā Erica Finkle, director of data governance at Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Insta, said in a blog post.
For now, these age verification features are only rolling out to a select group of users in the United States; but we imagine they could then roll out to other countries in the coming years.
