Instagram brings to Spain the AI ​​system that detects adolescent profiles and configures protections for their age

Instagram has announced the arrival in Spain of the artificial intelligence (AI) system with which detects profiles that belong to teenagers even if they claim to be of legal age, to configure their accounts with the corresponding protection measures.

A year ago, Meta began using AI technology to proactively identify accounts belonging to teenage users (between 13 and 17 years old) and automatically include them in the Teen Account settings on Instagram.

After its implementation in the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, Meta has now decided to extend its use to new markets, in such a way that It will be available in the 27 countries of the European Union, which includes Spain and Brazil.

This technology also will come to Facebookfirst in the United States and in June in the European Union and the United Kingdom, as reported in a statement sent to Europa Press.

Meta requires Instagram and Facebook users to are at least 13 years old to be able to create an account and use these two social networks, and assures that they have been “working for years to identify and eliminate accounts” that they believe belong to people under that age.

In these works, artificial intelligence plays a prominent role in determining the age of the user, either by analyzing the context of the profile, such as birthday celebrations or mentions of school grades, or by incorporating visual analysis into photos and videos, to identify clues that can be passed off as something with text alone.

Now, the use of the new AI system is expanding, which proactively detects accounts used by teenagers, even if they have entered an adult date of birth.

VERIFY AT STORE LEVEL

Meta has taken advantage of this announcement to state that the work of verifying the age of users is not something that a company can solve alone, and therefore considers that “the legislation should require app stores to verify age and provide this information to applications and developers.

“The fact is that all youth safety laws require knowing people’s ages. Require parental approval and age verification at the App Store or operating system level provides a centralized, consistent, privacy-preserving place for age verification, rather than requiring each individual app to meet different standards. It also helps ensure that the many apps that teens use offer the same level of protection“, he defended.