Meta announced on Monday that it is expanding Instagram's AI-powered age-estimation technology worldwide to catch more teenage users and move them into its Teen Account protections.
Much more than a photo scanner, the tech scans profiles for contextual clues such as birthday posts or mentions of school grades, and checks visual signals in photos and videos.
The AI-based interpretation includes judgments of things like a user's apparent height and bone structure to flag accounts that may belong to minors.
"We're also strengthening the technology we use to identify accounts that may belong to teens between the ages of 13 and 17 so we can ensure those accounts are placed in experiences designed for teens, even if they give us an adult birthday," Meta wrote in a blog post.
Teen Accounts restrict direct messages to people a user already follows, hide harmful comments and default to private settings. The tool had previously rolled out in select markets including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, the European Union and Brazil.
Meta now says the feature's global rollout will place millions more users into Teen Account protections.
The social media company is also extending the technology to Facebook, with a similar global rollout planned for Threads later this year.
It is the latest move by Meta as it seeks to strengthen its systems following an agreed settlement in August, in which it ceded to pay up to $18 billion to resolve claims from nearly every US state and territory, in relation to claims that its platforms harmed teenagers.
