Instagram Begins Verifying Age Through Video Selfies In The UK & EU

Beginning this week, Instagram will roll out its video selfie age verification tool, first announced in June, to users in the United Kingdom and European Union.

Targeting teenagers, the system uses an artificially-intelligent algorithm developed by UK-based firm Yoti to help ascertain if users are switching their date of birth from under to over 18 years of age.

According to Gizmodo, apart from the video selfie, those looking to register as adults can opt to submit a picture of their driver’s license or other acceptable identification documents. The video verification takes about 20 minutes, while the old-fashioned route will require about two days. 

The introduction of such a tool is undoubtedly in response to calls for Meta—Instagram’s parent company—to step up its protection for teenagers on its application. 

As per the BBC, research by media regulator Ofcom showed that one in three children lies about their age on social media to access adult-only content. On Instagram, users under 18 have their accounts set to private by default, and will receive “nudges” to encourage them to spend less time scrolling. 

Just how accurate will the AI be at verifying video selfies? In Yoti’s recent whitepaper, the firm said it could correctly identify users between the ages of 13 and 17 as being under the age of 23 99.65% of the time. 

Meta has assured users that the technology will not do anything apart from identifying users’ age, and the images or videos submitted to Yoti will be deleted once the process has been completed.  

[via Gizmodo and BBC, cover image via Nikkimeel | Dreamstime.com]