Meta expands AI age checks worldwide to move teens who claim to be adults into Instagram’s teen settings

Meta, the Menlo Park company that owns Instagram and Facebook, is expanding worldwide its use of AI to find accounts it suspects belong to teens and move them into Teen Accounts, even if they signed up with an adult birthday, the company said in a post Monday.  Meta says the change will put “millions more teens” into those protections.  It gave no exact number.

What Teen Accounts do

Teen Accounts, which Meta introduced in 2024, are private by default, so teens must approve new followers.  Teens can get messages only from people they follow or are already connected to, and they get the strictest setting for sensitive content.  Teens under 16 need a parent’s permission to loosen these settings, Meta says.

How the age check works

Meta began using AI to spot suspected teens in the United States in 2025, then expanded tests to the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.  It says people placed in teen settings by mistake can change them.  Meta says it is still rolling the technology out on Facebook and will start similar technology on Threads later this year.  This month, U.S. parents will begin seeing a video in their Instagram feed explaining the approach.

In Australia, Meta also uses Apple’s age-range signal, in which the app store tells an app a teen’s age range when a parent has set that up on the teen’s phone.  Meta says it supports laws requiring age checks and parental consent at the app store; that is the company’s position.

The attorneys general settlement

Meta says the expansion builds on its August agreement with a bipartisan group of state attorneys general.  California Attorney General Rob Bonta said that deal settles a lawsuit alleging Instagram and Facebook were designed to drive compulsive use by children and teens.  It sets a default two-hour daily limit and a midnight-to-6 a.m. block for users under 18 that only a parent can lift.  Meta says a judge approved the agreement Aug. 27.

Source:  Meta Newsroom, Nov. 9, 2026; Meta: Instagram Teen Accounts; Meta: using AI to enroll teens; Meta: agreement with attorneys general; California Attorney General release