Instagram brings new age verification options to India: Here’s how it works

Meta-owned social media service Instagram has been adding more new features to the platform to make it a safer space for users and one of the areas it has been working on for this is age verification. The platform started introducing new ways to verify age in some regions earlier this year and these options are now coming to more countries, including India and Brazil.
Already available in the US, the new age verification method will require users to use one of two methods to change their date of birth on Instagram, to edit their age from under 18 or 18 to above 18. These methods include uploading ID and video selfies.

“We’re testing this so we can make sure teens and adults are in the right experience for their age group.  We are also partnering with Yoti, a company that specializes in online age verification, to help ensure people’s privacy,” Instagram said in a blog post.
With video selfies, users can choose to follow on-screen instructions to guide them towards taking a video. The capture is then shared with Yoti, a digital ID service, which only verifies the age of the person based on facial features. The image is then deleted both Meta and Yoti, according to the company.
Alternatively, users can also share their IDs to verify their age. A third age-verification method called social vouching was also in use until Instagram took down the option to work more on it. Social vouching allowed users to ask three mutual followers to confirm how old they were and these users could then vouch for the user in question, provided they themselves are aged 18 and above.