Ace Security Desk – Expanding Teen Account Protections to Teens Around the World: For more than a decade, we’ve worked with leading experts to build toolsand resources to help teens and families have age-appropriate and postitive experiences on our 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 our apps.
As a result, millions more teens across the world who use Instagram will receive these built-in protections, even if they’ve misrepresented their age.
Ensuring all teens receive these protections depends on knowing theirage. This continues to be an industry-wide challenge as some teens maymisrepresent their age online to access experiences they’re not oldenough to use. We use AI technology to find people we suspect to beteens, even if they use an adult birthday, and place them in Teen Accountprotections. Since first introducing this technology, we’ve been placingmore teens in age-appropriate protections and are encouraged by theresults. Based on that success, today we’re expanding this technologyglobally.
For parents, this means greater peace of mind: no matter where youlive, we’re making proactive efforts to place your teen into age-appropriate protections — even if they use an adult birthday to set up anaccount. We’re continuing to roll this technology out on Facebook and,later this year, we’ll begin launching similar technology globally onThreads. This expansion builds on our commitments under our recentagreement with 52 bipartisan attorneys general to strengthen how weidentify teens and children under 13 on our apps.
Our Continued Partnership With Parents
This month, parents in the United States will begin to see an in-feed videoon Instagram explaining our approach to ensuring their teens are in age-appropriate protections. The video will link to an article, written by LarryMagid, internet safety advocate and President and CEO ofConnectSafely, detailing our multi-layered age assurance approach,which includes keeping children under 13 off our platforms, providing ageappropriate experiences for teens, and informing parents about waysthey can partner with us to ensure their teens provide the correct ageonline. The article is available for all parents worldwide to read.
Using Apple’s Age-Range Signal
In Australia, we’ve begun using Apple’s age-range signal as anothermethod to help understand age. The process is simple. When a parentsets up a smartphone for their teen, they have the option for the app storeto confirm the age of the person using the device and assign them an agerange. Then, each time the teen downloads an app, Apple passes thatage range to the developer — Meta, for example — confirming whetherthe teen meets the app’s age requirement.
We’re voluntarily using this signal, but as long as collecting it and sharingit remains optional for app stores, and using it remains optional fordevelopers, teens will receive inconsistent protections across the manyapps they use. We’ve long supported legislation requiring age verificationand obtaining parental consent on the app store. One verified signal frompeople’s devices, shared consistently with all apps, is far more effectiveand privacy-preserving than asking every platform to verify ageindividually. And the work developers like Meta do to estimate age can beused as a backstop to help correct mistakes and feed them back to theapp store for correction across all the apps a teen uses.
Our Work on Age Assurance Continues
Over the years, countries around the world have rapidly introduced newlaws governing how to keep teens safe online. While well-intentioned,many of these laws don’t explain how technology companies shoulddetermine a user’s age. Some require invasive age checks for everyone,while others offer no guidance at all — leaving companies to figure outhow to understand age without unnecessarily collecting sensitive data,like government IDs. We’ve set a strong standard for age assurance, butunless other companies follow suit, teens remain inconsistentlyprotected online, defeating the purpose of these laws.
We’ll continue to do our part to proactively ensure teens are in age-appropriate experiences on our apps. That’s why as part of ouragreement with 52 bipartisan attorneys general across US states,territories, and the District of Columbia, we’re investing in even strongertechnology to proactively catch accounts that may belong to childrenunder 13. We’re also strengthening the technology we use to identifyaccounts that may belong to teens between the ages of 13 and 17 so wecan ensure those accounts are placed in experiences designed for teens,even if they give us an adult birthday. As Instagram is just one of themany apps teens use, we’re also calling on our industry peers, TikTok andYouTube, to adopt these same practices to keep teens safe.
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