New updates to the Instagram app are being rolled out by Zuckerberg’s firm, Meta. Up to this point, profiles could be created for accounts older than 14. Users will now be required to provide additional verification. Either in the form of a video selfie or an identity document.
Combating fake accounts that are active on the site and ensuring that authentic accounts are at least 14 years old are the goals of this.
Verification is necessary if you modify the age in your account
From this point forward, a minor will need to go through the verification process in order to update the account’s age to 18 or older. The verification, which was previously announced, is now official.
Instagram’s Director of Public Policy, Tara Hopkins, has emphasized the value of being aware of the profiles’ ages in order to make sure that the platform’s age based experiences are up to par.
The image that is created will not be stored permanently, Instagram guarantees in a statement. If we choose verification with an identity document that certifies us, the personal document will be kept in a safe database for 30 days before being removed.
Instagram chooses to use Yoti, an age detection system, for video selfie verification. Even if it’s possible that this technology has a low failure rate, if we use the demo, we can see that it’s highly reliable, allowing us to determine what age bracket we are in.
Yoti is a technique that can identify age but is not suitable for use in facial recognition. In other words, you won’t know for sure if the person in the photograph or document matches the description. But you will know roughly how old they are.
Instagram uses the most reliable means to verify a person’s age
Hopkins believes that taking this risk and verifying users’ ages is a crucial step for Instagram in guaranteeing that this technology will respect users’ privacy and be the most reliable means to verify a person’s age.
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For our part, we still need to consider if this will be the start of identity document verification for users of social media. If so, the internet as we currently know it may no longer be completely anonymous.
There are already ways to prevent having numerous accounts or bot accounts in other countries. Like South Korea, such as identity document verification.
Whatever the case, some people may find the change to be an interesting one. While others may find it to be bad. Whether it is a good or bad idea to verify users in social networks. We will discover this in the future.
Other methods
In an effort to protect children from seeing offensive content on the site. Instagram has earlier begun testing three methods to confirm the age of platform users. One of the new techniques uses an artificial intelligence based system to evaluate user faces and determine their age.
Instagram could previously only confirm a user’s age via their identity card. Additionally, the age check takes place only when someone attempts to modify this data. So they would appear older than 18 on the social network. But that is about to change.
This system’s risk of failure is one of its down sides. In persons 24 years old or younger, the estimate may deviate by around 2.5 years, according to Yoti itself. Additionally, it does less well when evaluating the faces of women and persons with darker skin tones.
In addition to this approach, Instagram has added a new one. If the user asks it, the social network will ask three mutual followers chosen by the person whose age is being verified to comment on whether the user’s age is accurate. These followers will have three days to respond and must be at least 18 years old.
In the US, new verification techniques are already available. With these, Instagram hopes to keep users under the age of 13 from entering the social network. And those over 13 but under the age of 18 are safe by protecting them from unsuitable content.
