Instagram boosts child protection tools, including age prediction

WASHINGTON: Facebook-owned Instagram unveiled technology Tuesday aimed at preventing underage children from creating accounts and blocking adults from contacting young users they don’t know.

It was the latest move responding to concerns about inappropriate contact between adults and children on the platform, which like most services sets an age minimum of 13.

Instagram will begin using artificial intelligence to determine a user’s age at signup in an effort to find underage users.

“While many people are honest about their age, we know that young people can lie about their date of birth. We want to do more to stop this from happening, but verifying people’s age online is complex and something many in our industry are grappling with,” a blog post said.

“To address this challenge, we’re developing new artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to help us keep teens safer and apply new age-appropriate features.”