Instagram is testing an AI tool to scan faces and determine age

 

Instagram is testing a new way to verify the age of its users using an AI tool built by third-party company Yoti, and you must be at least 13 years old to register for an Instagram account. But many problems have arisen due to the fact that the company has not made any effort to enforce this rule. Until 2019, they didn't even get the birthdays of their new users. As privacy and child protection experts continue to raise these concerns, Instagram has introduced ways to separate younger users from older users.

Social Vouching has been introduced as the first method. Instagram asks you to confirm the age of three friends you know. All three must be above 18 years of age and you have three days to respond to this request. The second method uses AI technology and here you have to send a video selfie to the company and this is verified by a third party Yoti company.

Yoti is a well-known age and identity verification company whose technology has been approved for use by the UK government and German digital regulators. This method is a very complicated process. Various facial cues are used to estimate age. A 2020 analysis found that it was up to 98.89 percent reliable in guessing whether people over the age of 18 were over or under 25.

  This is not the only AI tool used by Instagram to determine the age of users. From 2019 another automated system is used to search for underage users. The system collects information such as users' birthday posts and the ages of their friend groups.

Eg - If a user claims to be 20 years old, but posts about celebrating their 17th birthday, their account will be flagged and they will be forced to verify their age.

Instagram says it's working to add new data points to the system and is even testing a new language analysis tool to determine whether a user is an adult or a teenager.