Instagram announced a new feature that will help the app to verify users’ age through by using AI that can estimate your age via a video selfie. This feature applies its regulation and aims teens and adults can get right experience for their age group.
Instagram will ask three mutual followers of the user to confirm their age, and this system is called “social vouching.” Those followers must be at least 18, also they only have three days to respond to the request or users can still verify their age with pictures of ID cards as well.
The AI will ask users to take a video selfie, and this system is a result of the company’s partnership with Yoti. This Yoti technology will process the facial features and share that estimate with its system. After that, both Meta and Yoti will delete the image soon. Instagram claims the technology won’t recognize your identity.
The system is still a controversial technology because many analysts look this technology will have a data leak. In addition, Yoti’s age recognition AI is still a higher error depending on your gender, age-range, and skin tone.
As may you know, Yoti’s system is already used by the UK and German governments to detect age by using deep learning from “hundreds of thousands” of pictures. Yoti itself publish a YouTube demo that shows makeup to young users to see whenthe system can still correctly guess their ages.
Some users reported that the result might vary when you use some face accessories, such as glasses. In general, the system has a plus or minus 3.97 years accurate and female faces with dark skin and the most accurate (2.38 years) with light-skinned male faces.
The AI also prevents teens from accessing Facebook Dating, adults from messaging teens, and helps teens from receiving restricted ad content, for example. Instagram will expand the technology for some new features in the future as well.