Meta Uses AI Age Detection on Users, Faces Privacy Criticism
Meta announced it will deploy AI to detect and remove Instagram and Facebook profiles of users under 13 by analyzing photos, posts and biometric features such as bone structure. The European Commission had found Meta failed to prevent underage use, and experts criticized the approach as invasive to privacy.
What happened
Meta announced plans to use its AI tool to identify, block and remove profiles of users under 13 from Instagram and Facebook. The system analyzes complete user profiles for contextual clues including posts, comments, biographies, photos showing birthday cakes with few candles or mentions of school grades, as well as biometric factors such as bone structure and height of people in photographs.
The announcement came days after the European Commission published preliminary conclusions indicating Meta had failed to prevent children under 13 from using Instagram and Facebook in the European Union.
Reported impact
Experts from Europe and UNICEF criticized the measure as invasive of privacy. Nina Kolleck, professor of Educational Theory and Socialization at the University of Potsdam, stated that to perform this analysis, Meta would need to create extensive data profiles based on age, as AIs need to learn from data that allows them to draw conclusions about age and behavior.
Governance controls
Meta campaigned in favor of its safety features for teens by partnering with a network of mothers and family influencers, including influencer Sadie Robertson Huff from the reality show Duck Dynasty, to spread information about Instagram Teen Accounts and convey that Instagram is safe for adolescents.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.