The firm said the information would allow them to restrict accounts of older users from messaging those under the age of 18 and change the advertising experience to restrict targeting options for those users too.
Instagram plans to give users a window of opportunity to share their birthday with the platform before they restrict access to it altogether.
Warning screens will also be placed on adult content that prompts users to enter their birthday as a way to restrict inappropriate content from younger users.
“We recognise some people may give us the wrong birthday, and we’re developing new systems to address this,” Instagram said in a blog post.
“As we shared recently, we’re using artificial intelligence to estimate how old people are based on things like “Happy Birthday” posts.
“In the future, if someone tells us they’re above a certain age, and our technology tells us otherwise, we’ll show them a menu of options to verify their age. This work is still...