Around six months after the company began testing the tool, it went live in the United Kingdom.
U.K. users who attempt to change their date of birth from under 18 years of age to over 18 years of age will be subject to the verification method. Users can change their date of birth by submitting a photo of a drivers license or other accepted ID instead of the selfies.
The tools are an attempt to appease child safety advocates who have called on tech firms to do more to properly identify younger users on their site, but could also draw scrutiny from privacy advocates who are wary of Meta's collection ofbiographical information.
Some of the types of notifications teens receive when attempting to change their date of birth can be seen in the Screenshots. The user is asked if they want to submit an ID or take a video selfies. Users who use the old fashioned ID route would have to wait up to two days to have their identity verified, while those who take a selfies can have their results in 20 minutes. A separate image shows a user taking a video selfies to verify their identity as part of the verification process.
In a recent white paper, Yoti claimed to be able to accurately identify users between the ages of 13 and 17 as being under the age of 23. The company claims it can estimate a user's age by analyzing their facial features, which is different from other methods.
Yoti writes that this is notfacial recognition, where a computer system tries to match a face against a database to confirm a person's identity. If there is anything in the captured image that looks like a human face, it's detected.
Yoti's Chief Policy and Regulatory Officer told Gizmodo that proving age online is a complex, industry wide challenge, but that their facial estimation tools strike a balance between effectiveness and privacy.
The facial age estimation is a privacypreserving solution. Everyone can prove their age without sharing their name or an ID document. The technology allows children to access appropriate content.
The new tools were an important step in protecting young users of their platform, according to the Public Policy Director of the company.
This is a challenge across our industry because we need to know how old people are in order to make the experience appropriate for their age.
The new identification method was being tested at the time. Meta wanted the tech to help make sure teens and adults are in the right experiences. It's important that you identify because it's different for different ages. The accounts of users who are between the ages of 13 and 17 have their profiles private by default, and have limited exposure to certain types of advertisements.
Children under the age of 13 are not allowed to sign up for the service, even though third party research shows younger users are still able to use the service frequently. According to a report from Thorn, a non-profit dedicated to fighting child sexual abuse, as many as 40% of children under the age of 13 use social media.
Internal Meta research shows the negative mental health impacts of social media for young users. According to internal company surveys, teens frequently claim the platforms make them feel worse about their bodies and increase their rates of anxiety and depression.
The success or failure of the selfie verification system in the U.K. could be used as a bellwether for the future of the service. Part of the expansion is already under way. According to Sensor Tower data, the program will be rolled out to overseas marketers in Brazil and India, which together account for 400 million daily active users.
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