Instagram demands date of birth from new members

The photo-sharing network already requires people to be at least 13 years old to create an account.

Asking for a date of birth would help the company to avoid targeting ads for age-restricted products at children, the Reuters news agency reported.

But Instagram said advertising was not behind the change.

"Asking for this information will help prevent underage people from joining Instagram, help us keep young people safer and enable more age-appropriate experiences overall," the company said in a blog post.

"We will use the birthday information you share with us to create more tailored experiences, such as education around account controls and recommended privacy settings for young people."

The information will help Instagram stop adult-focused advertisements for gambling, alcohol and birth control from being displayed to children.

But the company said that in the coming weeks it would encourage young members to switch on more privacy settings.

'No verification'

At present, existing members will not be asked to provide their age because Instagram is not sure whether it would be too intrusive to ask, Reuters reports.

Additionally, the Facebook-owned social network will not verify the date of birth information it is given.

Criticising the plan, the child-protection charity NSPCC said in a statement: "Asking users to provide an unverifiable date of birth will do nothing in practice to protect children from harmful or age-inappropriate content.

Instagram - along with its parent company Facebook - has long been under fire over its failure to enforce rules that say users should be 13 or over. It is thought millions of underage children are on both platforms.

While Instagram is painting this new policy of demanding a date of birth as a child protection initiative, it will not verify that young users are telling the truth about their birthdays. What it could do is enable the company to sell more advertising for age-sensitive products such as alcohol.

At the moment, the company has to be ultra-sensitive about making sure such adverts are not seen by children. Now that it knows - in theory at least - how old its users are, it should be able to target ads with greater confidence.

Nobody will have their date of birth publicly displayed on their Instagram profile.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50660893?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c207p54m4pdt/social-media&link_location=live-reporting-story