SENSE OR NONSENSE? Instagram To Start Asking New Users To Provide Their Age Before Creating An Account

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Almost a decade after its launch, Instagram is now taking
responsibility to protect underage kids from the problems with social
media as it will now ask new users to input their birth date and bar
users younger than 13 from joining.

However, it won’t be asking existing users their age.

Starting from Wednesday, December 4th, the photo-sharing service will
ask new users for their date of birth when an account is created.

Before now, Instagram users were required to confirm they were ages
13 or older when signing up, but they didn’t have to provide an exact
birthday.

However, as with any other online service, it’s possible users can
lie about their age in order to join. “Asking for this information will
help prevent underage people from joining Instagram, help us keep young
people safer and enable more age-appropriate experiences overall,”
Instagram wrote in a blog post.

Instagram said it would use age information to recommend younger
people opt for more privacy settings, such as allowing new message
requests only from people they follow.

The photo-sharing service had been criticized for not checking kids’
ages, which potentially runs the risk of exposing younger users to
inappropriate content and also allows Instagram to collect data about
kids under the age of 13.

The Child Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) limits how a company
can collect data about anyone under 13. COPPA was passed in 1998, but
was expanded in 2012 to apply to more types of companies and new
technologies, such as mobile devices and targeted ads. Instagram now
expects ad targeting to become more accurate as a result of the change.

Previously, Instagram said it targeted those types of ads to people
when it was “confident” they were the appropriate age. The company
figured out ages from Instagram accounts connected to Facebook, where
birthdates are required.

The new requirement marks the latest way Instagram is becoming a
little bit more like its parent company Facebook (FB). Birthdays have
long been a fixture on Facebook. In recent years, the company has
encouraged people to continue wishing each other a happy birthday on
Facebook through birthday charity fundraisers and special “Birthday
Stories” that disappear after 24 hours.

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