Instagram brings in new age verification tools for users in the UK and the EU

Instagram has brought in new age verification tools for users in the UK and the EU.

The photo sharing app has introduced new technology for people attempting to amend their age from under 18 to over 18 years old. Instead of relying on photographic ID, people must record a video of themselves that will then be sent to be analysed by an age-guessing tech.

The app - which is owned and operated by Meta, which also controls Facebook and Whatsapp - claimed this move would make sure that people had age appropriate content on their feeds.

The move comes after the company shared their plans to increase the methods for teenagers - who must be over the age of 13 to use the service - to verify their ages. In the Us, they ran a trail that gave people three ways to prove their age; uploading photographic identification, getting an adult to confirm their age and via a video selfie.

Instagram already claims to use artificial intelligence and in-app reporting to check users' ages.

However, Ofcom data revealed that one in three children have access to adult content by lying about their age.

Anna-Sophie Harling, a representative from the UK communications industry regulating body believes this had a “huge impact” on children and cited the Molly Russell inquest, where a coroner found that the algorithm pushed content linked to “anxiety, self-harm or suicide” before the 13-year-old schoolgirl died by suicide.

She told BBC News at the time: "That was a very specific case of harmful content that had very detrimental impacts and tragic outcomes on a family in the UK.

"When we talk about potentially harmful content to under-18s, it's content that might have more significant negative consequences for under-18s because they're still developing.

"When children are repeatedly exposed to images and videos that contain certain images, they're then essentially led to act in different ways or to think differently about themselves or their friends."

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