Instagram is expanding its age verification program to several more regions, as it looks to improve its processes of clarifying and confirming user ages and limiting their exposure in the app. At least in terms of regulating underage browsing, Instagram is doing itself a good service with this update.

According to Meta’s Andy Stone:

“Starting today, we’re beginning to expand our Instagram age verification test to Mexico, Canada, South Korea, Australia, Japan, and more countries in Europe. This builds on an expansion to India and Brazil we announced in October, with more countries coming in the next few months.”

How Old Are You Again?

Instagram first launched its age verification program last June, which now requires users to verify their stated age by using one of three options:

  • Upload their government ID.

  • Record a video selfie.

  • Ask mutual friends to verify their age.

In particular, Instagram’s video selfie process uses video analysis from Yoti to estimate a person’s age in the clip. Check out this teaser.

Meta says that the process has proven to be highly effective, with 96% of teens who’ve attempted to edit their birthdays from under 18 to 18+ stopped from doing so. This enhanced level of verification could be a big step in ensuring that young users are not accessing potentially harmful elements of the app, and aren’t being targeted by advertisers with inappropriate promotions.

This is an important focus, because as various investigations have found, Social Media platforms, Instagram included, can be harmful to younger users, in numerous ways. At the same time, underage usage can also expose kids to predators and, more commonly, inappropriate content. Such issues have only been exacerbated over the last two years, with all the lockdowns forcing more kids to go online for entertainment and social connection. With more parents now also working from home, it becomes nearly impossible to be monitoring your children all of the time, especially if you have, like, 3 of them.

The Wrap

Additional measures like this are a significant step. While it won’t necessarily stop young users from cheating the system, the combined effort will limit the capacity of kids to essentially circumvent the checks of Meta’s apps. This expansion is another important development that could go a long way toward improving the platform’s safety aspects.

Sources

http://bit.ly/3KSSvca