Instagram will use AI to confirm your age: Here's how
What's the story
Instagram is exploring two new methods of age verification. When the users will attempt to change their age to be 18 or older, the platform will ask them to verify their age.
Individuals must either upload a video selfie to allow Instagram verify their age using an AI tool or request three mutual friends, who will then need to respond within three days.
Context
Why does this story matter?
Instagram wants to know your age because first, you must be over 13 to use it. Secondly, the app aims to deliver a personalized experience.
The company says establishing someone's age online is challenging. Hence, it is looking into new approaches.
The platform claims that the data will not be utilized for anything else and will be removed after the purpose is fulfilled.
Strategy #1
Instagram will seek help from Yoti, its AI partner
Changing the age on Instagram to be 18 or older will require age verification, according to the service.
This will necessitate the user to upload a video selfie, which the site will then send to its partner, Yoti - a business that employs artificial intelligence to verify age.
The results will be delivered within a time frame of 20 minutes.
Information
All about Yoti's AI
Yoti's AI has a claimed accuracy rate of 2.96 years for 6-70 year olds, 1.52 years for 13-19 year olds, and 1.56 years for 6-12 year olds. The company says that users are not individually identifiable, and that gender and skin tone bias is minimized.
Strategy #2
Age verification via social vouching
The second method of confirming user age is via social vouching, which involves requesting three mutual followers to validate the age.
The individual vouching must be at least 18 years old and not be vouching for anybody else at that instance.
Once you have requested your friends or family to vouch for you, they must respond to your age verification request within three days.