Instagram Expands New Age Verification Options To Indian Market

Meta-owned Instagram has brought its new age verification options to India. Earlier this year, the social media platform started testing new options for people on Instagram to verify their age in the US market.

In a blogpost, the company said that it will be introducing the options in additional countries, including India and Brazil.

“We plan to expand to the UK and EU before the end of the year. We’re also removing Social Vouching as an option to verify age from the test to make some improvements,” it said. 

The social vouching option allows users to ask mutual followers to confirm how old they are. 

If a user in India attempts to edit their date of birth on Instagram from under the age of 18 to 18 or over, they will have to verify their age using one of three options – uploading their ID, recording a video selfie or asking mutual friends to verify their age. 

Instagram started testing this feature in the US to make sure teens and adults are in the right experience for their age group, it said.

“In 2019, we began asking people to provide their age when signing up for Instagram. Since then, we’ve made this a requirement. Knowing people’s age allows us to provide appropriate experiences to different age groups, specifically teens,” Instagram said.

When Instagram announced the age verification options, it partnered with Yoti, a company that offers privacy-preserving ways to verify age. 

Lately, Instagram has been introducing new tools to make the platform safe for teens amid criticism that the app is impacting the well-being of teens. It recently rolled out parental supervision tools in India to help parents get more involved in their teens’ experiences on the platform.

It also introduced ‘Family Centre’ which enables parents and guardians to access supervision tools and resources from leading experts. 

With over 750 Mn smartphone users, India has emerged as one of the most important markets for social media platforms. According to a Deloitte report, this number is expected to rise to 1 Bn by 2026. Facebook and Instagram have over 329 Mn and 230 Mn users in India, respectively, as per Statista.