Instagram to ask users to verify their age using AI

Social media platform Instagram is to use artificial intelligence to verify users' ages.<br><br>The firm said a type of AI which can tell how old someone is from a video selfie would be used in the trial.<br><br>It is among several methods being explored by the platform to verify the age of users and help keep children safe.<br><br>Users will also be able to ask friends or family to vouch that they are over a certain age or provide official identification.<br><br>The company said US users would be part of the first phase of the trial, which begins on Thursday.<br><br>The AI used in the trial is provided by the London-based digital identification app Yoti. It will look at facial features to estimate how old they are.<br><br>Users are asked to upload a short video as part of the process. Yoti says its AI is trained on "hundreds of thousands" of images of faces.<br><br>Instagram has been under growing pressure to increase the age checks on its platform. The platform currently relies on users confirming their own age.<br><br>Technology Editor Jane Wakefield said:<br><br>**Could it be fooled?**<br><br>Using AI to guess age from a facial image is not a new thing, nor is it the first time the technology has been tested in the wild. It was used in shops in the UK to check the age of those wanting to buy things like alcohol or knives and was found to be 98% accurate in lab conditions. But, in the real world that accuracy fell to less than 80%. <br><br>The app is trained on a vast dataset of faces and so there may be concerns that it could be less accurate for certain ethnicities or on older users.<br><br>That said, users can ask three "mutual followers" to vouch for them - with the followers then getting a request to confirm or deny that the user is over the relevant age.<br><br>Do we trust a disinterested AI more than our friends?