Instagram using AI to detect Canadian teens signed up for adult accounts

The Instagram logo is seen on a cellphone in Boston, USA, Oct. 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)

Instagram is testing artificial intelligence in Canada that will identify accounts it suspects belong to teens, even if they list an adult birthday.

The change to the social network announced Monday centres around an AI model trained on information including the dates accounts were created and interactions they had with other profiles and content.

Because people in the same age group tend to interact similarly with certain types of content, the data will help the model make calculations about how likely users are to be an adult or a teen.

If Instagram suspects a teen of trying to deceive the company with an adult birthday, the platform will place the user in a teen account.

A year ago, Instagram began placing Canadian teens into accounts that limit who can contact them, how much time they spend on the service and what content they see.

At the time, it said it caught users lying about their age, when they inputted an adult birthdate after initially registering a teen birthdate but later provide an adult one, or when they reported an adult age but then got birthday wishes showing they’re a minor.

It started dabbling in the U.S. with AI to catch teens faking their age in April, when it expanded teen accounts to Facebook and Messenger.

That month, users under 16 were prohibited from going live on the platform, unless their parents gave them permission to do so. Parental permission was also needed to turn off a feature that blurs images in direct messages containing suspected nudity.

Monday’s expansion of AI for age verification to Canada was part of a broader roll out that will see the technology also used in the U.K. and Australia. Parents across all three countries will begin receiving notifications on Instagram with information about how they can have conversations with their teens about the importance of providing the correct age online.

Kaitlynn Mendes, a sociology professor at Western University and the Canada Research Chair in inequality and gender, saw the switch toward using AI as Instagram’s way of reducing some of the burden associated with age verification.

“It makes sense because these social media companies don’t have enough human moderators, so I can see how tech can be used as a way to try to help,” she said.

While she’s a fan of more protections for underage users, she said, “I tend to be quite skeptical about technology, about this idea that AI is going to solve all of the problems, because we know that it won’t.”

Parents and safety advocates have long considered Instagram addictive and problematic for young people. They say teens routinely encounter predators, unwanted messages and unsuitable content on the platform.

Mendes, who has spent years surveying youths across the country, has found teen girls with few privacy settings on their accounts are “almost guaranteed” to be sent unwanted photos from older men, while teens boys are often subject to porn bots and explicit imagery.

Adding AI into the mix doesn’t do much to address these situations or the anxiety, mental health crises, self-harm and suicide that Mendes said social media has provoked.

“I think social media platforms feel as though they have to respond,” she said. “This (AI announcement) is maybe just part of it, like, ‘Hey, look at how amazing we are. Don’t worry, parents, your children are safe on Instagram because we’re using all this tech to try to verify their age.’”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 22, 2025.

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press