Meta Is Expanding AI Age Detection For Instagram Teen Accounts

Meta is expanding its AI age-detection system globally to place more Instagram users into teen accounts, and will extend the technology to Facebook and Threads. The system, already in use in the US, EU and Brazil, estimates whether a user is 13 to 17 and funnels them into restricted teen accounts even if they entered an adult birth date. Teen accounts block stranger messages, default profiles and posts to private, impose daily time limits and include parental controls. Meta will soon notify US parents on Instagram about how teens are placed into these accounts. The company uses bone-structure analysis of photos and signals such as mentions of school grades or birthdays to estimate age, and in Australia is adding Apple's age-range system as an extra signal. The push matters because it shifts age verification onto platforms rather than app stores, a policy Meta has long lobbied for; watch whether regulators and parents accept the accuracy of the estimates.