Instagram announced on Monday that it is now using artificial intelligence in Canada to identify accounts it suspects belong to teens, even if they have listed an adult birthday. This is part of a broader rollout that will also see the technology used in the U.K. and Australia. The AI model has been trained on a variety of information, including when accounts were created and how users interact with other profiles and content. Because people in the same age group tend to interact in similar ways, the data helps the model calculate how likely a user is to be a teen or an adult. If Instagram’s system suspects a teen is trying to deceive the company, the platform will automatically place the user in a teen account with restricted settings.
A year ago, Instagram began placing Canadian teens into accounts that limit who can contact them and what content they see. The company previously caught users lying about their age when they changed their birthdate from a teen age to an adult one, or when they received birthday wishes that revealed them to be a minor. The platform also began using AI in the U.S. in April to catch teens faking their age, and expanded these teen accounts to Facebook and Messenger.
The Challenges of Age Verification
Kaitlynn Mendes, a sociology professor at Western University, sees the move towards AI as Instagram’s way of reducing the burden associated with age verification. She said it “makes sense because these social media companies don’t have enough human moderators,” but she remains “quite skeptical about this idea that AI is going to solve all of the problems.”
Indeed, Instagram’s AI won’t catch everyone. The technology cannot identify users younger than 13—the minimum age to have an account—because it was not trained on data from that age group. The platform will continue to use third-party software from digital identity company Yoti to catch underage users who try to switch their birthdate to an adult one. Yoti’s system requires users to provide a video selfie, and it scans facial features to estimate their age. Even with all these measures, Mendes notes that many kids under 13 still manage to get onto the platform.
Parental and Expert Concerns
Parents and safety advocates have long considered Instagram to be problematic for young people due to the prevalence of predators, unwanted messages, and unsuitable content. Mendes, whose research has focused on youths across Canada, found that teen girls with few privacy settings are “almost guaranteed” to be sent unwanted photos, while teen boys are often targeted by porn bots and explicit imagery. She is skeptical that AI alone can solve these deeper issues, which she says have provoked anxiety, mental health crises, and self-harm. Mendes views the AI announcement as a public relations move, saying, “This is maybe just part of it, like, ‘Hey, look at how amazing we are. Don’t worry, parents, your children are safe on Instagram because we’re using all this tech to try to verify their age.'”
Parents in all three countries—Canada, the U.K., and Australia—will soon receive notifications with information about how they can have conversations with their teens about the importance of using their correct age online.
What The Author Thinks
This AI-driven approach to age verification is a pragmatic but imperfect solution to a persistent problem. While it’s a necessary step to protect teens from harmful content and interactions, it also reinforces a future where a user’s identity and behavior are constantly being analyzed by algorithms. This move signals that Instagram is moving toward a more structured, rule-based environment, and away from the truly open social network it once was. The ultimate success of this strategy will be measured not just in its ability to catch people lying, but in its ability to address the deeper, more complex issues of online safety and mental health, which no single piece of technology, no matter how advanced, is likely to solve completely.
Featured image credit: Cedrik Wesche via Unsplash
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