Here’s why Instagram is asking for your date of birth again

New Delhi: Before being able to access Instagram, users are now required to enter their date of birth. The shift comes more than eight months after Instagram declared its intention to make age verification essential on its site and began requiring users to enter their birthday information. The main goal of the upgrade is to limit access to children under the age of 13. Instagram will also be able to use a user's date of birth to better target advertisements to them.

Instagram displays a screen before enabling access to its material in order to collect the date of birth. It requires users to enter their date of birth and does not allow them to skip this step.

"Even if this account is for a business or a pet, you must provide your birthday before you can continue using Instagram," the screen prompt states. "This aids in the protection of our community's youth. Your birthday will also be used to further personalise your experience, including advertisements. It will not be shown in your public profile."

The new prompt has begun to appear for some Instagram users who have not yet entered their date of birth. Several of them have resorted to Twitter to express their displeasure with Instagram's decision to forcefully ask for their birth date.

In 2019, Instagram began asking for age verification as an optional feature. Last year, the site made it essential to give date of birth information and announced the rollout of prompts to let users to fill in the information while browsing their feed or publishing new content for their followers. Users who did not enter their details and missed the preceding prompts were able to access the Instagram app till today.

Of course, some underage users will be able to get around the limits by providing a fake birth date. Instagram, like Facebook, has an artificial intelligence (AI)-based system in place to accurately assess the age of its users.

"People wishing you a happy birthday, as well as the age written in such messages, such as 'Happy 21st Bday!' or 'Happy Quinceaera!' We also use the age you shared with us on Facebook to apply to our other apps where you've linked your accounts, and vice versa — for example, if you share your birthday with us on Facebook, we'll use it for your linked account on Instagram, and vice versa,"the social media behemoth explained its birthday detection technology on its website.

The latest update, which restricts access for kids, could eventually help Instagram redirect its youth following to a new app that we may see in the future. Meta would also be able to make more money by presenting customised ads to its users after learning their dates of birth.