Meta is expanding the AI-powered age detection technology behind its Teen Accounts to Instagram users globally, a move the company says will bring built-in protections to millions of teenagers who may have misrepresented their age when signing up.
Teen Accounts, which are available on Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger, automatically restrict who can contact a user, limit the content they see, and cap time spent on the apps.
The challenge has always been enforcement: some teens enter an adult birthday to sidestep these restrictions. Meta says its AI tool is designed to identify those users anyway and move them into the appropriate protections regardless of the age they’ve declared.
The global expansion follows what Meta described as encouraging results since the technology was first introduced. The company is also continuing to roll it out on Facebook and plans to launch a similar system on Threads later this year. The moves form part of a broader agreement Meta reached with 52 bipartisan attorneys general across US states, territories, and the District of Columbia to tighten how it identifies both teens and children under 13.
On the parental engagement side, Meta said US parents will begin seeing an in-feed video on Instagram this month explaining the company’s age assurance approach, with a link to a piece by Larry Magid, President and CEO of internet safety organisation ConnectSafely. The article is available to parents worldwide.
In Australia, Meta has also begun using Apple’s age-range signal, a system where a parent setting up a smartphone for their teen can allow the app store to confirm an age range, which Apple then passes to developers each time the teen downloads an app.
Meta said it supports legislation that would make this kind of verified device-level signal mandatory and consistent across all apps, arguing that platform-by-platform age verification is both less effective and less privacy-preserving than a single shared signal.
Meta also called on TikTok and YouTube to adopt equivalent practices, noting that teens use many apps and that inconsistent protections across platforms limit the effectiveness of any single company’s efforts.
