You’ll Have to Enter Your Date of Birth to Keep Using Instagram

Before being able to access Instagram, users are now required to enter their date of birth.

The shift comes more than eight months after Instagram declared its intention to make age verification essential on its site and began requiring users to enter their birthday information.

The main goal of the upgrade is to limit access to children under the age of 13. Instagram will also be able to use a user’s date of birth to better target advertisements to them.

Instagram displays a screen before enabling access to its material in order to collect the date of birth. It requires users to enter their date of birth and does not allow them to skip this step.

“Even if this account is for a business or a pet, you must provide your birthday before you can continue using Instagram,” the screen prompt states. “This aids in the protection of our community’s youth. Your birthday will also be used to further personalize your experience, including advertisements. It will not be shown in your public profile.”

The new prompt has begun to appear for some Instagram users who have not yet entered their date of birth. Several of them have resorted to Twitter to express their displeasure with Instagram’s decision to forcefully ask for their birth date.

why is Instagram asking for my birthday ?

— Phoebe ? (@pbjisabella) May 3, 2022

instagram is asking for my birthday… probably a good time to just delete the app

— josé (@joserloser) May 3, 2022

https://twitter.com/charlieargueta/status/1521282632830849024

In 2019, Instagram began asking for age verification as an optional feature. Last year, the site made it essential to give date of birth information and announced the rollout of prompts to let users to fill in the information while browsing their feed or publishing new content for their followers. Users who did not enter their details and missed the preceding prompts were able to access the Instagram app till today.

When Gadgets 360 contacted Meta for comment on the modification, a company spokeswoman stated that the move was made to help prevent underage Instagram use.

“We’ve made it plain that we want to do more to ensure that young people have safe and age-appropriate experiences. To do so, we need to know how old Instagram users are “In a prepared statement emailed to Gadgets 360, a Meta spokeswoman said. “We’ll keep asking users to share their birthday or age with us if they haven’t already, and we’ll make it a requirement because this information is needed to build new features to protect young people, offer them with age-appropriate experiences, and assist discourage underage use of our platform.”

Of course, some underage users will be able to get around the limits by providing a phony birth date. Instagram, like Facebook, has an artificial intelligence (AI)-based system in place to accurately assess the age of its users.

“People wishing you a happy birthday, as well as the age written in such messages, such as ‘Happy 21st Bday!’ or ‘Happy Quinceaera!’ We also use the age you shared with us on Facebook to apply to our other apps where you’ve linked your accounts, and vice versa — for example, if you share your birthday with us on Facebook, we’ll use it for your linked account on Instagram, and vice versa “The social media behemoth explains its birthday detection technology on its website.

Last year, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, was discovered to be working on a children’s version of the Instagram app, which may be dubbed Instagram for Kids.

The corporation was asked to abandon its intentions by advocacy groups and authorities, including the US Attorneys General. As a result of the backlash, the company decided to put the app on hold in September.

Despite the fact that it was advised to do so by several religious leaders in February, Meta has not totally abandoned its ambitions to launch Instagram for Kids.

The latest update, which restricts access for kids, could eventually help Instagram redirect its youthful following to a new app that we may see in the future. Meta would also be able to make more money by presenting customized adverts to its users after learning their dates of birth.