Instagram extends age verification to new countries

Meta announced today that it has started testing the new ones age verification tools for instagram in multiple countries, such as Canada and Mexico. The feature, introduced for the first time last June exclusively for the United States, has already been active in Italy and the rest of Europe since November 2022. This provides users with three different methods to demonstrate to the platform that they are of age.

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A first age verification process began, albeit timidly, in 2019. In that year, Instagram had started asking users to spontaneously enter their date of birth. In fact, we remind you that the platform guidelines provide for aminimum age of 13 years. In 2021 Meta’s social network made it the date of birth must be enteredintroducing some restrictions for minors (private account by default, DMs from blocked strangers and more).

Since 2022 Instagram has instead begun to introduce the new verification process which, as mentioned, can be carried out through three different methods, at the discretion of the user. Let’s see what they are.

How Instagram verifies the age of users: three different methods

Members are asked to verify their age through one of three methods available:

• Identity card: just take a photograph of any valid document (identity card, driving license or passport)
• Video selfie: the Instagram algorithm, taking advantage of Yoti’s AI, is able to verify the age of a subject by analyzing their somatic features
• Social guarantee: Instagram will ask the user to indicate three adult users who will be asked to vouch for him. The three, who must be common followers with the user to be verified, will be asked if the latter falls into the following categories: under 13 years old; 13/17 years; 18/20 years; 21+ years old. In Italy the process stops at 18+, given that the age of majority in our country is reached at the age of 18. The verification will take place only if all three users provide the same answer.

In the case of the first two methods, Instagram promises to eliminate all the material provided (document photo or selfie video) from the database within a maximum of 30 days.

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