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On Monday, Meta revealed that it had added a new way for users of its Facebook Dating service to confirm their age. Facebook is exploring with ways to let users of the platform’s dating service confirm their age, like using an AI face scanner.
In a blog post, Meta made the announcement that it would begin asking Facebook Dating users to confirm their age if the platform suspected they are under 18.
Users can then confirm their age by submitting a photo of their ID or posting a selfie video that Facebook shares with a third-party company. According to Meta, Yoti’s technology leverages facial signals to estimate a user’s age without revealing their identity.
According to Meta, the new age verification technologies will aid in preventing children from using adult-only features. Adults on Facebook Dating don’t seem to be required to prove their age in any way.
The US social media juggernaut has also utilised Yoti to check the age of Instagram users who try to modify their birthday to declare themselves 18 or older.
However, The Verge found that not everyone’s results were accurately predicted by the system: According to Yoti’s research, its accuracy is worse for “feminine” faces and individuals with darker skin tones.
Instagram said that it had started asking users to enter their birthday information last year. The social media behemoth finally made the prompts mandatory for users who wished to keep using Instagram after at first allowing them to be ignored. The prompts were made to find out how old users were on Instagram and stop inappropriate content from showing up in their feed. At the time, Instagram said the data was required for new child protection features it was developing.
