Meta alerts young Australians to download their data before a social media ban

MELBOURNE, Australia — Tech giant Meta on Thursday began sending thousands of young Australians a two-week warning to delete their digital history and delete their accounts from Facebook, Instagram and Threads before a world-first social media ban on accounts of children under 16 comes into effect.

The Australian government announced two weeks ago that the three Meta platforms, along with Snapchat, TikTok, X and YouTube, must take reasonable steps to exclude Australian account holders under the age of 16, effective December 10.

California-based Meta on Thursday became the first of the targeted tech companies to explain how it would comply with the law. Meta has contacted thousands of young account holders via text and email to warn that suspicious children will be denied access to the platforms starting December 4.

“We will begin informing affected teenagers today to give them the opportunity to save their contacts and memories,” Meta said in a statement.

Meta said younger users could also use the notice period to update their contact details “so we can contact them and help them regain access once they turn 16.”

Meta estimated there were 350,000 Australians aged 13 to 15 on Instagram and 150,000 in that age bracket on Facebook. Australia’s population is 28 million.

Account holders aged 16 and over who were mistakenly told they would be excluded can contact Yoti Age Verification and verify their age by providing government-issued identification documents or a “selfie video,” Meta said.

Terry Flew, co-director of the Center for AI, Trust and Governance at the University of Sydney, said this facial recognition technology had a failure rate of at least 5%.

“In the absence of a government-mandated identification system, we are still looking for second-best solutions to these problems,” Flew told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

The government has warned platforms that requiring all account holders to prove they are over 15 would be an unreasonable response to the new age restrictions. The government maintains that the platforms already had enough data on many account holders to ensure they were not young children.

Failure to take reasonable steps to exclude young children could result in fines of up to A$50 million ($32 million).

Antigone Davis, Meta’s vice president and global head of security, said she would prefer that app stores, including the Apple App Store and Google Play, collect age information when a user signs up and verifies that they are at least 16 years old for app operators such as Facebook and Instagram.

“We believe a better approach is needed: a standard, more accurate, privacy-preserving system, such as age verification at the OS/App Store level,” Davis said in a statement.

“This, combined with our investments in ongoing age-guarantee efforts…provides more comprehensive protection for young people online,” she added.

Dany Elachi, founder of the Heaps Up Alliance parent group that has lobbied for an age limit on social media, said parents should start helping their children plan how they will spend the hours currently consumed by social media.

He criticized the fact that the government only announced the full list of platforms that will be age-restricted on November 5.

“There are aspects of the legislation that we don’t fully support, but the principle that children under 16 are better off in the real world, that’s something we stand for and support,” Elachi said.

“When everyone is out, no one is out. That’s the theory. We certainly expect it to happen that way. We hope that parents will be very positive about it and try to help their children see all the potential possibilities that are now available to them,” he added.