Meta Plans to Use AI to Detect and Remove Underage Users Under 13

Meta announced in early May that it will deploy AI technology to detect and remove accounts held by users under 13, the minimum age for platform use. The system will analyze entire profiles for contextual clues including birthday celebrations, school grade mentions, posts, comments, bios, and captions—and will also evaluate physical characteristics like height and bone structure in photos. The announcement followed preliminary findings from the European Commission that Meta had failed to prevent minors under 13 from accessing Instagram and Facebook in the EU. However, the approach has drawn criticism from academics and researchers who argue that invasive data collection and analysis do not genuinely protect young people. Experts like Oxford University's Andy Przybylski contend that such practices create verified advertising targets rather than safer experiences, and suggest that privacy legislation and platform design reforms would be more effective than age-based detection systems.