Instagram is testing out a trial in which it scans users' faces for proof they are over 18 years old:
The company announced the trial, which began on 23 June and is currently only being rolled out in the US, in a blog post. The trial is focused on users who try to change their age on the app from under 18 to over 18. Those users have three ways to verify their age: upload a photo of their ID, ask three mutual friends verify their age, or record a video selfie.
If a user selects the video selfie method, Instagram passes the videos to a London-based identity-verification startup, Yoti. Yoti will scan the user's facial features in the videos to confirm their ages, the company said.
Both Yoti and Instagram will delete the data once they've verified the user's age, per the announcement. The London startup's algorithm only verifies the user's age and not their identity, Instagram wrote, quoting a whitepaper from Yoti.
[...] If a user chooses to submit a photo of their ID to confirm their age, the image will be deleted after 30 days, the company said.
You can try the Yoti Demo yourself (the company pinky-swears they delete any data you share with them).
See also: Instagram is testing an AI tool that verifies your age by scanning your face
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bmimatt on Monday June 27 2022, @07:22PM (4 children)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by looorg on Monday June 27 2022, @07:47PM (2 children)
As anyone should know "delete" is not the same as something being gone. It's just not linked to anymore in a user friendly kind of way.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2022, @08:29PM (1 child)
And sometimes it's just a field named "Deleted" in a database table.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday June 28 2022, @05:07PM
That's totally bogus. That's what we call deaccessioning, because it could be useful to have the data at some point. Just not now.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2022, @11:55PM
A selfie video gets deleted after an age is determined, but if you scan and upload your ID, they can hold it for up to 30 days???
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2022, @07:51PM (1 child)
"Show us yer titties so we can see if yer old enough". Yeah, already heard that one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2022, @08:06PM
It's going to be a lot of male bitch tits ... pass!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2022, @07:54PM
It isn't worth much after it's been sold a few times. No point wasting valuable storage space.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2022, @08:53PM (4 children)
Wow! That's an impressive AI indeed! Imagine! An AI that can look at a picture of you taken the day before your 18th birthday and know that you are legally a minor, and look at another picture taken the next day and know that you are legally an adult. Just by looking at the age of your face, without ever actually identifying you!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 27 2022, @10:22PM (3 children)
Let's feed it a picture of Cher, or Dolly Parton -- see what it predicts about some one who has had a lot of work done.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2022, @02:05AM (1 child)
Those wouldn't get past the "are you a robot" check.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Dr Spin on Tuesday June 28 2022, @05:54PM
I can't get past the "Are you a robot" test. Its so annoying, I am thinking of becoming a robot.
Well, if people can get sex changes, why not?
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 3, Funny) by NateMich on Tuesday June 28 2022, @02:48AM
Mickey Rourke might be an interesting one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 28 2022, @05:06PM
That said I think kids who aren't smart enough to figure out how to use someone else's photo probably deserve to not be considered over 18,
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Tuesday June 28 2022, @09:03PM
We have software that ages your face. You see it all the time when the news mentions a missing person case that's been cold for years.
I don't know how accessible that software is, since I'm way past the age of needing to fake my ID so I don't care to dig deep. However, it seems like just a matter of time before they pipe the selfie pix through the aging software.
This is assuming that the company cares more than college town bartenders. True story: one of our friends at school (age 18 or 19 at the time), a scrawny white dude, he found a driver's license that belonged to a 40 year old Black woman. He showed it to the door man and got in. Plainly, ID check was security theater. The local grocery did eventually have their license suspended for selling whole kegs and cases of beer to under-aged though, so the authorities did have some kind of limit.
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