(Newser)
– Two days after saying it needs to improve protection for its younger customers, Facebook said in an internal post that it is developing an Instagram app that would add users under the age of 13. Federal privacy regulations do not allow children under the age of 13 to use the application as is. “We identified youth work as a priority for Instagram and added it to our H1 priority list,” an executive told employees on Thursday, according to BuzzFeed. This fact was omitted in the post entitled “Continuing to make Instagram safer for the younger members of our community”, who repeated the minimum age and said that Instagram requires verification when new users sign up. The company confirmed the BuzzFeed report on Friday by the AP, saying it is “exploring a parental-controlled experience” on Instagram.
The watchdogs immediately complained that the plan is a way to develop users from the start, so that the company can profit from them later. “Facebook represents one of the biggest threats when it comes to children’s privacy,” said an Amnesty Tech official, part of Amnesty International. “Increasing safeguards for children online is critical, but the fact is that Facebook will collect data from children and profit from their detailed profiles.” A researcher at the University of Maryland said, “From a privacy perspective, you are just legitimizing children’s interactions by being monetized in the same way as all adults using these platforms.” Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, said that checking ages has been difficult, as 13-year-olds do not have a driver’s license or other official identities. “We have to do a lot here,” he said, “but part of the solution is to create a version of Instagram for young people or children where parents have transparency or control.” (Read more Instagram stories.)