Meta Expands AI Age Detection Technology to Protect Teens Globally

Meta  announced the global expansion of its AI technology to help identify teens who may have misrepresented their age online and place them in Teen Account protections.

For more than a decade, Meta has worked with leading experts to build tools and resources that help teens and families have age-appropriate and positive experiences on its apps. Teen Accounts on Instagram, Facebook and Messenger provide teens with a set of built-in protections that automatically limit who can contact them, the content they see and their time on the apps

Ensuring all teens receive these protections depends on knowing their age. This continues to be an industry-wide challenge, as some teens may misrepresent their age online to access experiences they are not old enough to use.

To address this, Meta uses AI technology to find people it suspects to be teens, even if they use an adult birthday, and place them in Teen Account protections. Since first introducing this technology, Meta has been placing more teens in age-appropriate protections and is encouraged by the results. Based on this success, the company is now expanding the technology globally.

As a result, millions more teens across the world who use Instagram will receive these built-in protections, even if they have misrepresented their age. For parents, this means greater peace of mind. No matter where they live, Meta is making proactive efforts to place teens in age-appropriate protections, even if they use an adult birthday to set up an account.

Meta is continuing to roll out this technology on Facebook and, later this year, will begin launching similar technology globally on Threads.