Instagram Takes Its AI Age Checks Worldwide to Catch Teens Who Faked Adult Birthdays

Lying about your birthday on Instagram is about to get a lot less useful, everywhere. Meta said on November 9 that it is expanding its AI age-estimation technology globally, a move it says will push "millions more teens" into Teen Account protections on Instagram, even if they signed up with an adult birthday.

The company says it uses AI "to find people we suspect to be teens," then quietly moves them into the restricted version of the app. According to The Verge, the system looks for signals that a user is likely under 18 and automatically places 13 to 17 year olds into Teen Accounts. The Verge reports the tools first launched in the US, the EU and Brazil last year. Meta says it is "encouraged by the results" of that earlier rollout, though it did not publish accuracy figures or say how many accounts have been moved so far.

Teen Accounts are not a cosmetic label. The Verge describes them as private by default, limited in the kind of content teens can see, and closed to DMs from strangers. Users who are 16 or younger cannot change those settings without a parent or guardian signing off, and parents can choose to supervise accounts to set time limits.

Apple becomes the extra witness

The AI guess is not the only check. In Australia, Meta says it has started using Apple's age-range signal as an additional way to understand age. When a parent sets up a phone for a teen, the App Store can confirm the user's age and assign an age range, which Apple then passes to developers like Meta each time the teen downloads an app.

Meta uses that detail to land a familiar punch at the app stores. The company argues that as long as sharing the signal stays optional, teens "will receive inconsistent protections across the many apps they use," and repeats its long-running push for laws that put age verification on app stores.

"One verified signal from people's devices, shared consistently with all apps, is far more effective and privacy-preserving than asking every platform to verify age individually." Meta

Convenient, since that hands the hardest part of the job to Apple and Google. Meta also called on TikTok and YouTube to follow its lead.

The timing is not accidental either. Meta ties the expansion to its recent agreement with 52 bipartisan attorneys general to strengthen how it identifies teens and children under 13. The Verge links it to a $17.1 billion lawsuit settlement in August, in which it reports Meta agreed to bolster age assurance and place heavier restrictions on teen users. This is a safety feature with a legal bill attached.

One distinction matters. The Verge issued a correction after initially reporting that the same AI tech detects and removes under 13 users. Meta told the outlet that is a separate process, and the expansion announced Monday only moves teens into Teen Account settings.

Parents in the US are getting a nudge too. Meta says that this month they will begin seeing an in-feed video on Instagram explaining its approach, linking to an article by Larry Magid of ConnectSafely. The company says it is still rolling the technology out on Facebook and will begin launching similar tools globally on Threads later this year.

What Meta does not address is the error rate. In an April analysis, The Verge reported that age inference "often can't reliably predict someone's age," and that when a system is unsure, or falsely flags an adult as a minor, users end up being asked to hand over personal data anyway. That same piece noted Instagram may flag an account if someone wishes the user a happy 14th birthday in a post. Signals like that can catch a fibbing teenager, or misfire on an adult.

Meta frames the whole effort as "greater peace of mind" for parents. The real test is whether a global AI system that guesses ages from behavior can protect millions of teens without wrongly locking down adults, and Meta has not yet shared the numbers that would let anyone check.