From now on, American Instagram users can prove they are of age on the platform in two new ways: by certifying three friends or via an AI-based facial recognition system. These two functions will be offered when a user tries to change their date of birth on Instagram from under 18 to over 18.
For AI recognition, Instagram has signed a partnership with Yoti, a well-known industry player whose technology has been approved by the UK government and German regulator KJM. The algorithms will analyze the user’s face in order to come up with an estimate of their age. According an external studyYoti’s tool is 98.89% reliable in determining whether an 18-year-old is over or under 25.
Meta clarifies that the two companies then remove the video selfie, and that the technology cannot recognize an identity but only detect age. A demo is available at this link if you want to try the system, in which the group claims that it does not log any data.
The Verge note that the online device is quite limited: one can for example fake the demo of Yoti simply by showing a photo to the camera. It remains to be seen how Instagram will implement all this in its app, because if nothing will prevent a smart guy from passing his phone to a friend while sending a video selfie.
Another method to know if the user is an adult: the “social guarantee”. Instagram will invite the user to choose 3 “guarantors”, who will have to certify that the interviewee has passed his 18th birthday. Those called must also be 18 years old: they will then receive a confirmation request to which they have 3 days to respond.
Meta remember that it already uses artificial intelligence to recognize the age of its users, for example by scanning messages (“ Happy 18th birthday! ”) or by linking the date of birth of Facebook and Instagram if the accounts are linked. Knowing whether a user is of legal age allows (among other things) to prevent access to Facebook Dating or to block the reception of messages from unknown adults on Instagram.
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