Facebook and Instagram owner Meta has unveiled new age verification plans.
Meta wants to use visual cues like “height or bone structure” as part of age verification.
The tech giants, which owns social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram as well as WhatsApp, has announced new “age assurance measures” powered by AI, which will use contextual clues from a users’ profile along with a “visual analysis” to determine their age.
In a blog post, Meta explained: “We’re also adding visual analysis as a new technique to aid our detection efforts.
“This technology allows our AI to scan photos and videos for visual clues about a person’s age that text might miss.
“We want to be clear: this is not facial recognition. Our AI looks at general themes and visual cues, for example height or bone structure, to estimate someone’s general age; it does not identify the specific person in the image.
“By combining these visual insights with our analysis of text and interactions, we can significantly increase the number of underage accounts we identify and remove.”
The AI technology will be used to analyse profiles for clues, “such as birthday celebrations or mentions of school grades”, as a way of finding out if an account could belong to someone underage.
Under its rules, everyone on Instagram or Facebook must be at least 13 years old.
Meta continued: “We look for these signals across various formats, like posts, comments, bios, and captions, and we’re continuing to expand this technology across additional parts of our apps like Instagram Reels, Instagram Live, and Facebook Groups.
“If we determine an account may be underage, it will be deactivated and the account holder will need to provide proof of age through our age verification process to prevent their account from being deleted.”
Other users can also report accounts they believe to be used by kids under 13.
Meta hopes it’s new methods will “significantly increase the number of underage accounts we identify and remove”.
Meta will use ‘height and bone structure’ for age verification
