Meta announced it is expanding the global use of its AI-powered age estimation technology, aimed at identifying teen accounts on Instagram even when users register a birth date indicating they are adults, and placing them under protections designed for younger age groups.
In a statement published on Monday, the company said the move will bring millions of additional teenagers worldwide into the "teen accounts" settings, which include automatic restrictions on who can contact them, the content they see, and the time they spend on the platform.
The company explained that the technology analyzes various signals in accounts to estimate users' ages, rather than relying solely on the birth date provided at registration. This allows it to detect accounts suspected of belonging to teenagers aged 13 to 17, even if their owners entered ages indicating they are adults.
According to the company, the protections include automatically switching accounts to private mode, restricting direct messages to people the teen follows or has a prior connection with, limiting the visibility of harmful comments and content, and providing controls over app usage time.
It added that the technology is also being rolled out gradually on Facebook, and that it intends to begin applying similar technology globally on Threads later this year.
As part of efforts to strengthen communication with parents, Meta announced it will begin this month showing instructional videos to parents in the United States on Instagram, explaining how teen ages are determined and how they are placed under protection settings, and how to help ensure the accuracy of age information provided by their children.
In Australia, the company has begun using the age category signal provided by Apple as an additional means of determining users' ages. This mechanism allows parents, when setting up smartphones for their children, to share an age category confirmed by the app store with app developers, helping them verify that users meet age requirements.
Meta argued that sharing a unified, reliable age signal across apps could be more effective and privacy-preserving than each platform conducting separate verification processes, calling for app stores to be required to verify ages and obtain parental consent.
The expansion comes amid growing legal pressure on technology companies over the impact of their platforms on children and teenagers, and follows Meta's agreement with 52 attorneys general in US states and territories to strengthen mechanisms for detecting children's and teens' accounts and providing appropriate protections.
The company did not announce exact figures on the number of accounts the new measures will cover, or the accuracy rate of the technology used in age estimation.
