How does the new Instagram procedure for age verification work, even in Italy

Starting today, Meta does debut on Instagram throughout Europe (including Italy) an unprecedented way to check the age of the members or of those who want to enroll.

The novelty will concern in particular those who want to change the date of birth on Instagram for prove that you are over 18 years old, thus marking the transition to majority age. In that case, the person will be asked to prove his age in two ways: by uploading a identity card or by recording a short selfie videoon which a new technology will be applied that tries to estimate age through the face.

From Meta they explained that “to do this we collaborate with Yoti, a company specializing in age verification methods that protect privacy”: certified by the Age Check Certification Scheme (things?)Yoti is a leading provider of age verification services in the world and is “endorsed by leading youth and privacy experts and regulators”. According to what was announced, “if you choose to record a selfie video, the image is shared with Yoti and no one else: Yoti estimates the user’s age based on facial features and shares this estimate with Meta”. From the company of Menlo Park they have stressed that “this is not a facial recognition technology” and that therefore “Yoti estimates the age of a person without identifying or recognizing him”, that “the name or identity of a person is never provided” and also that “once the age is estimated, all images are immediately deleted from both Meta and Yoti ”.

Why age matters on social media

As early as 2019, Meta started asking people to state their age when registering to Instagram and since then indicating age has become a must. And it is important for various reasons: “This allows us to offer experiences suitable for different age groups, especially teenagers”, explained by Meta. More precisely, “to users who we know are adolescents (ie aged between 13 and 17, ed) we provide age-appropriate experiencesoffering private accounts by default, preventing unsolicited contacts with adults they do not know and limiting the options available to advertisers to reach them ”.

As you know, to subscribe to Instagram is must be at least 13 years old (although in some countries there is a higher minimum age) and already in 2021 Meta had confirmed that, in addition to testing the new menu of options to check the age of people, “We also use AI to understand if they are teenagers or adults”with artificial intelligence that “helps prevent teens from accessing Facebook Dating and receiving restricted advertising content and adults from texting them.”