In a blog article on Tuesday, 17 September, Meta announced a new initiative on Instagram in which users under the age of 18 will be placed into teen accounts with built-in protections. The move aims to give parents greater control over their children's activities on the platform. The change will initially apply to new teenage users but will be extended to existing accounts over the coming months.
The new account setting will initially apply to users in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada.
In a statement responding to the news, Stephen Almond, Executive Director of Regulatory Risk at the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), said: "We welcome Instagram's new protections for its younger users following our engagement with them. Our Children's code is clear that kids' accounts must be set as 'high privacy' by default, unless there is a compelling reason not to do so. We'll keep pushing where we think industry can go further, and take action where companies are not doing the right thing."
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