Instagram is testing face scans to help users verify their age

This page was translated using AI and machine learning before being reviewed by a human editor in your native language.

(Pocket-lint) – Instagram is testing new ways for users to verify their accounts, including a method that aims to estimate age with a video scan of the face.

Currently, one of the instances where the app asks users to verify their age is when they change their date of birth, which can be done through photo IDs. However, the Meta-owned app is now introducing two new methods to help streamline this process – social guarantee and AI rating through video selfies.

The first method, the social guarantee, is simply to ask three followers of the user to confirm their age, these followers must of course be over 18 years old. Those who have been approached then have three days to respond to the request.

The face scanning method, on the other hand, involves users sending a video selfie to a third-party company, Yoti, which then uses machine learning to give an estimate of the person’s age.

Yoti already uses similar technology for identity verification, approved by the UK government and digital regulators in Germany, which works by tracking facial signals. You can also try it here, the company also indicating that it does not keep any of the data you share with it.

It’s not yet clear how Instagram will leverage this technology to aid its own verification methods, but we believe it works much the same as Yoti’s web demo.

And it will likely be a welcome addition to the app experience. After all, while users must be at least 13 years old to create an Instagram account, the app didn’t really have any methods in place to help control this – not even asking new users their date of birth – until in 2019. Even then, it was only last year that entering a date of birth became mandatory for all users (although this could also have been taken automatically from a Facebook account).

The app is improving in this regard, however, and now even uses tools that aim to spot signals in birthday celebration posts, checking whether the details match the user’s stated age. If not, they are flagged and age verification may be required.

This pair of newly introduced methods are therefore part of a wider effort by Instagram to help improve the safety and security of users on the app – and while this is certainly a very complicated task, things as these seem to be a step in the right direction.

Written by Conor Allison.