Meta Begins Rolling Out Age Verification Tools for Facebook Dating in the US

Meta is bringing some of the age verification tools it has been using on Instagram to Facebook Dating.

Three options were introduced for U.S. Instagrammers in June to verify that they were old enough to use the platform: uploading accepted forms of identification, such as a driver’s license or other form of identification card; uploading a video selfie; and a social vouching option that enabled users to ask mutual followers to confirm their age.

The initiative was extended to more countries in October, and the social vouching option was discontinued.

Age verification is being rolled out on Facebook Dating in the U.S., and the minimum age to sign up for and access that feature is 18.

Meta will continue its partnership with Yoti, which specializes in online age verification and collaborated on the initiative for Instagram.

Director of data governance Erica Finkle explained in a Newsroom post Monday, “We want to make sure people are placed in experiences that are appropriate for their ages, so we use technology to understand where people have misrepresented how old they are. That’s why we’ve invested in age detection technology to find potential discrepancies in the ages people provide us and the age we think they may be based on our technology. If we detect that someone may be under the age of 18 and trying to use Facebook Dating, we will prompt them to verify their age.”

The same two methods in place for Instagram are being used for Facebook Dating.

People can upload a form of official identification to verify their age, and it will be encrypted and stored securely, and not visible on their profile or to anyone on the application. Users can control how long their ID is saved for once their age is verified.

Or people can upload a video selfie, after which Meta will share a still image from that selfie with Yoti. That company’s technology will estimate the person’s age based on their facial features and then delete the image immediately. Finkle stressed that Yoti’s technology cannot recognize users’ identities, and only estimates their age.

Finkle wrote, “Our age verification tests show that our tools are working to help keep people within age-appropriate experiences. Since we began testing new age verification tools on Instagram in June, we’ve found that approximately four times as many people were more likely to complete our age verification requirements (when attempting to edit their date of birth from under 18 to over 18), equating to hundreds of thousands of people being placed in experiences appropriate for their age. We also were able to stop 96% of the teens who attempted to edit their birthdays from under 18 to 18 or over on Instagram from doing so. And we have found that 81% of people presented with our menu of options chose to use Yoti’s video selfie to verify their age.”

She continued, “As we learn more, we plan to bring our age detection technology and verification tools to other countries globally where Facebook Dating is available, and to more experiences that require people to be over 18 to access them.”

Facebook Dating was initially introduced at F8 2019 in May 2019, and it debuted in the U.S. in September of that year.

After initial plans to roll the feature out in several markets in Europe Feb. 13, 2020—the day before Valentine’s Day—were scrapped due to concerns by the Irish Data Protection Commission, Facebook Dating was extended to 32 more countries in October 2020.