Instagram will require all users to enter their date of birth

Instagram will require users to enter date of birth. The company says it does this to protect minors on the platform. Initially, users can decline, but eventually it becomes mandatory.

Instagram indicates that users are currently only asked to enter their date of birth in certain scenarios. Users will be shown a notification to share their birthday a few times when they open the Instagram app, but it’s non-binding for now. Also, if users want to view images or videos that may be “sensitive”, they will be asked to share their age. In time, however, users will be required to share their date of birth with the service. If they don’t, they won’t be able to use the platform until they set their birthday.

The company has been asking new users for their date of birth since 2019, but has not yet made it mandatory for users who were already using the service before that time. With this obligation, the company says it hopes to protect underage Instagram users. The company is already taking some measures for minors. For example, adult users cannot send messages to minors who do not follow them. Profiles of users under the age of 16 are also set to private by default since last month.

Instagram further acknowledges that “users can share a fake birthday.” The company says it will use artificial intelligence to detect whether users share a fake date of birth. The algorithm for this would, among other things, check birthday wishes on the platform, but does not yet elaborate on how the system works.

In time, certain users may also be asked to ‘verify’ their age. “In the future, if someone tells us they’re over a certain age, and our technology tells us otherwise, we’ll show them a menu of options to verify their age,” Instagram said. This measure is said to be in an early stage and the company will share more details about it shortly.

Images via Instagram