Instagram introduces new AI-based tool to verify age of users in India. Here's how it will work

Some websites and online platforms often require users to tell them about their age, so that they can moderate content accordingly and create feeds that would be “kid-friendly.” Expecting users to be honest about their age, especially when there’s a filter on content based on age, doesn’t really work. [caption id=“attachment_11472401” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Users will have the option to upload a photo ID with their date of birth, or they can upload a video selfie, which will be analysed by an external firm. Image Credit: Instagram[/caption] Most websites and social media platforms had no way to verify the age of their users. This has been a huge problem for platforms like Instagram, which have been accused of serving content that disproportionately harmed children; social media usage has often been linked to an increase in despair and depression in preteens and children. To tackle this, Instagram started experimenting with verifying the age of a user using AI-based tools. Although the program started out in the US, it has now reached India. Anyone in India who now tries to create a new Instagram account, and claims that they are an adult, will need to prove that.   The way this works is that Instagram will ask users to upload a photo ID of the user. Our guess is that they will need the photo ID to clearly show the date of birth of the user. In case someone is not comfortable in sharing their photo IDs with the platform, they have the option to share a video with the to the social media platform.   Instagram, will then use AI-based tools to analyse the video and determine, whether the new applicant is indeed an adult. What parameters will the new tools check in the video has not been made public as of yet, simply so that people are not able to come up with ways to spoof the system. The company has said they are working with UK-based digital identity supplier Yoti. Yoti will get the video selfies of users and will give further information to Meta about the age of the user. When the program was under testing in the US, Instagram had allowed existing users to vouch for new users to the platform who claimed to be over the age of 18. However, they soon found out that this system could easily be spoofed and hence decided not to continue with it. The accounts of users who are less than 18 years of age will be automatically made private for security reasons, Also adults will not be able to message minors directly. This year, Instagram also added a parental supervision feature too that aided parents in securing their children from inappropriate content online.