Meta introduces facial analysis AI to estimate teen ages on Instagram, Facebook

Meta Platforms is introducing a new, friendly AI system that will help analyze faces in photos and videos to estimate the ages of teenage users on Facebook and Instagram.

Meta to use AI-powered facial analysis to understand teenage users better and create a safer online environment.

This new tool is designed to identify underage users more accurately and to ensure that teenagers aged 13 to 18 receive age-appropriate content recommendations that align with their safety settings, helping create a safer online environment for teens.

The initiative is part of broader efforts as regulators in Europe, Brazil, and the United States encourage social media platforms to enhance protections for young users. Meta reassures that it doesn’t use facial recognition technology for this purpose and clarifies that the technology cannot identify individuals.

Instead, Meta uses visible age cues to determine whether someone is under 13 or a teenager, ensuring the process respects user privacy and comfort.

The company’s AI algorithms analyze behavioral and textual cues from posts, comments, captions, bios, and profile activity to estimate age.

While acknowledging that some inputs might be missed or that users could attempt to deceive, Meta believes that by incorporating image and video analysis, it can greatly improve the accuracy of age estimation across Facebook and Instagram.