Meta has expanded the global use of its artificial intelligence technology to identify teenagers who provide false birth dates on its platforms, as the company strengthens measures to protect young users online. The technology is designed to identify accounts belonging to teenagers, even when users register with dates of birth that indicate they are adults. Those identified will automatically receive additional safety restrictions through Meta’s Teen Accounts feature.

The company announced the expansion on Monday, November 9, saying millions more teenagers on Instagram would benefit from the protections regardless of the age they entered when creating their accounts. Meta said the technology would initially expand across Instagram, while similar measures were being introduced on Facebook. The company also plans to begin rolling out the technology globally on Threads later this year.

According to Meta, its artificial intelligence systems examine information across users’ profiles to identify signs that an account may belong to a teenager. The system considers contextual information, including posts, comments, profile details and other activities that could indicate a user’s actual age.

This approach allows the company to identify young users who attempt to bypass age restrictions by entering incorrect birth dates during registration. Once an account is identified as belonging to a teenager, it is automatically placed under Teen Account protections. These measures restrict who can contact the user, the type of content they can access and the amount of time they spend on the platforms.

The restrictions are designed to reduce unwanted interactions, limit exposure to inappropriate material and encourage healthier social media habits. Meta said its experience with the technology since its introduction had encouraged the company to extend its use to more countries.

“Based on that success, today we’re expanding this technology globally,” the company said in a statement.

The expansion is part of Meta’s broader efforts to create safer online experiences for teenagers and address concerns about young people’s exposure to inappropriate content and unwanted interactions. The company said parents in the United States would begin receiving notifications on Instagram explaining how its age protection measures work and how they could help ensure their children’s ages were correctly recorded.

In Australia, Meta has also started using Apple’s age range signal as an additional way to determine users’ ages. The system allows Apple to share an age category with app developers when users download applications, subject to available consent arrangements. The latest development comes as Meta faces growing legal and regulatory pressure over the safety of children and teenagers on social media.

In August, the company reached settlements worth up to $18 billion with nearly every US state and territory over lawsuits concerning the alleged harmful effects of its platforms on young users. The agreements included commitments to improve how the company identifies teenagers and children under 13. Meta said it was also strengthening its technology to identify accounts that may belong to children below the minimum age requirement for its services.

The company maintained that age verification remained an industry wide challenge and called on other technology companies, including TikTok and YouTube, to adopt similar measures to improve online safety.