Meta announces new changes for under 16s based on 5Rights principles 

5Rights today welcomed Meta’s announcement of new default higher privacy settings for under 16s on Instagram, an important – if insufficient – step towards compliance with children’s data protection and safety laws. 

The changes, announced today and to be rolled out first in the US, Canada, UK and Australia, and globally from January 2025, come further to 5Rights’ work to promote design of service and default settings that reflect the age and development stages of child users and are now embodied in legislation including the UK, California and Maryland Age Appropriate Design Codes and the EU Digital Services Act.

“It is very positive that services such as Instagram that are central to so many children’s lives are increasingly taking action towards the respect of their basic rights to privacy, safety and agency. Meta’s announcement today recognises the role that regulation such as the Age-Appropriate Design Code plays in driving such changes. More needs to be done to enforce these laws. Only when we have full and widespread compliance will we see a significantly better digital world for children. We look forward to continuing to engage with Meta and other companies as well as with regulators for these small steps to continue, and for bigger ones to follow,” said Leanda Barrington-Leach, 5Rights Executive Director. 

Based on the announcement, it is to be understood that all accounts of users Meta suspects of being under 16 will be defaulted immediately to private. This setting will mean they can only be messaged by people they follow or are already connected to, can only be tagged or mentioned in content by people they follow, and will not receive notifications between 10pm and 7am. They will also receive by default prompts to “take a break” after 60 minutes on the app.

Rather than tackling profiling and recommendation systems that routinely expose children to harmful content and contacts however, the changes focus on increased parental surveillance. Parents are now able to see who under 16s are talking to and the topics they are engaging on – an approach which limits children’s privacy for outreach and exploration. Another change, allowing all under 18s to select topics of interest, is positive in that it increases their agency over content recommendations, but only if it replaces rather than enhances AI-driven profiling. It remains unclear to what extent ‘private’ accounts on Instagram limit the unnecessary collection, sharing and commercial exploitation of children’s data by Meta.

Over the coming months 5Rights will be assessing the implementation of the changes, their impact on the lived experience of children, and the remaining gaps in compliance, including as regards 16 and 17 year olds.