Meta said on November 9 that it is expanding Instagram’s AI system for estimating users’ ages worldwide, aiming to place millions more suspected teen users—including users who entered adult birth dates—under Teen Account protections.
The expansion extends a system that looks beyond the birth date a user provides. It identifies accounts that Meta believes belong to teenagers. Teen Account protections automatically limit who can contact teens, what content they see, and how much time they spend on the app.
Meta says parents in the United States will begin seeing Instagram notifications this month explaining how the company applies the protections. The notifications will also explain how families can help ensure a teen’s age is accurate. In Australia, the company has also begun using information from Apple about a user’s age range as another way to assess age.
Meta says it is continuing to roll out the technology on Facebook. It plans to begin a similar global rollout on Threads later this year. The Instagram expansion comes amid lawsuits alleging harm to young users.
It also comes amid agreements with U.S. attorneys general that call for stronger efforts to identify users’ ages. Meta did not provide an accuracy rate or a country-by-country schedule for this expansion in its announcement.