Meta teen safety deal faces age-check problem

Meta's settlement with nearly every US state promises curfews and time limits for teenagers on Instagram and Facebook, but depends on age and parent checks that remain unresolved.

The deal ended a federal trial in Oakland, California, on Wednesday. It gives Meta one year to identify which users are aged 13 to 17 in participating states and territories. Those accounts will have curfews and time limits turned on by default, and only parents will be able to loosen them.

For the system to work, Meta must determine the age of every user in those places, including adults. Possible methods include identification documents, mandatory selfies or analysis of user activity. Any account not verified within 14 days will face the same restrictions as a teenager's account.

The agreement does not set out a firm way to prove that a supervising adult is a parent or guardian. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers asked what would stop an older sibling from presenting themselves as a guardian. California prosecutor Nicklas Akers said there was no plan to require a birth certificate or identification from the parent.

Social media industry expert Jasmine Enberg said teenagers often find workarounds and that parents can override some strict rules. She said the approach could shift some responsibility from Meta to parents and help insulate the company from similar cases in the future.

Privacy advocates warned that stronger age checks could expand user identification and data collection. The Electronic Frontier Foundation said the settlement would entrench Meta's surveillance, weaken privacy and anonymity, and increase exposure to data breaches and government data requests.

The settlement includes safeguards limiting data collection to what age estimation requires and allowing adults wrongly classified as minors to appeal. Iain Corby, head of the age-verification industry group AVPA, called it the most significant intervention in children's online safety.

Identification checks carry their own risks. In October, a breach at a third-party age-verification company potentially exposed the government IDs of 70,000 Discord users.

Other countries and companies have struggled with the same problem. Teen use of social networks in Australia has climbed back close to previous levels after an under-16 ban, helped by virtual private networks that conceal identity and location. In France, a ban on under-15s was struck down by the Constitutional Council, and the communications regulator Arcom said many children got around rules with help from parents.