Meta Rolls Out AI to Analyze Teen Faces for Age Estimation

Meta is rolling out AI-powered technology to analyze the faces of teenage users of Facebook and Instagram. This initiative represents the company's latest effort to comply with age verification requirements in Europe, Brazil, and the US.

The company says the AI analysis will be used to estimate the ages of faces. However, it stresses that this does not amount to face recognition technology.

Regulators around the world are requiring social media companies to get far better at identifying and blocking users below the age of 13. Additionally, teenagers in the 13-18 range need to be given age-appropriate feeds.

The social media network already uses AI to try to pick up clues as to the age of its users. This includes using AI technology to analyze entire profiles for contextual clues such as birthday celebrations or mentions of school grades to determine if an account likely belongs to someone underage. The company looks for these signals across various formats, like posts, comments, bios, and captions, and is continuing to expand this technology across additional parts of its apps like Instagram Reels, Instagram Live, and Facebook Groups.

Meta says that it is now adding visual analysis of the faces of users. This technology allows the AI to scan photos and videos for visual clues about a person’s age that text might miss. The company wants to be clear that this is not facial recognition. Its AI looks at general themes and visual cues, for example height or bone structure, to estimate someone’s general age. It does not identify the specific person in the image.

The company has also renewed its call for the legal responsibility for age verification to be passed to app stores rather than individual developers. While investing heavily in its own age assurance technology, Meta knows that no single company can solve this challenge alone. It believes legislation should require app stores to verify age and provide apps and developers with this information so that they can provide age-appropriate experiences, like Teen Accounts. The company claims that 88% of US parents support this approach.