Last year, Instagram launched a number of features to protect users under the age of 18. But for these measures to be effective, the network social should know the age of its users, or at least know who the underage users are. So, in August the network social began asking all users to enter their dates of birth. “We have made it clear that we want to do more to create safer and more private experiences for young people. To do this, we need to know the age of everyone on Instagram, so we started asking people to share their birthday with us if they haven’t shared it before,” the network’s announcement read. social. This has certainly had a positive impact on the platform in terms of protection minors. But as always possible for a minor to indicate they have reached the age of majority, or vice versa, Instagram is announcing new measures this week that will serve to ensure users don’t lie about their age. However, for now, these trials are limited to the United States. As explained on the web social, the check is triggered when someone wants to change their date of birth to change from low to high (over 18). And to make sure that a person indicating that they are of legal age is indeed an adult, Instagram has chosen three solutions.
AI that can estimate your age by analyzing selfies
The first option, is to provide an identity document. Once verified, Instagram will keep a copy of the document for 30 days and then delete it. Otherwise, Instagram will also be able to verify a person’s age by analyzing video selfies. To provide this functionality, Meta has partnered with Yoti, which has developed an AI capable of estimating a person’s age from an image. The meta explains that once a user takes a video selfie, it is sent to Yoti. The latter will estimate the age from the elements of the face, then send son instagram score. The image is then removed. Instagram points to son reported that Yoti algorithms are not able to identify a person, but only evaluate son page. And the third way is to obtain from other users a guarantee of the legal age of the person. How it works ? In fact, the user will be able to choose three people as guarantors. son age. These must be the people he follows and who follow him and who have come of age. On the other hand, at the time of verification, these people should not vouch for anyone. Once these people have been selected, Instagram will send a message to confirm the age of the user to be verified. They will have three days to respond. Regarding privacy, Instagram writes: “The information provided in each option age verification is used to verify your age and will not be visible on your profile, your friends or other users on Instagram. »
Instagram asks for help from Apple and Google
And while it’s only one test. What’s more, Instagram seems to acknowledge that its solution may not be perfect. “Determining the age of a person online is a challenge for the entire industry. We want to work with others in our industry and with governments to set clear standards for online age verification,” the network said in a statement. social. For this, the best solution would be cooperation between online services and device manufacturers or hardware stores.apps. Indeed, they could tell apps the user’s age so that those apps can provide an appropriate experience.
