Making Instagram Safer for the Youngest Members of Our Community

We are announcing a few updates in our continued effort to build a safer experience for the youngest members of our community.

Asking for your date of birth

Starting today, we will be asking for your date of birth when creating an account on Instagram. According to our Terms of Use, you must be at least 13 years old to have an account in most countries. Asking for this information will help prevent underage people from joining Instagram, help us keep young people safer and enable more age-appropriate experiences overall. Your birthday will not be visible to others on Instagram, but you’ll be able to see it when viewing your own private account information.

If you’ve connected your Facebook account to your Instagram account, we will add the date of birth that’s on your Facebook profile. This is not public information and only you will be able to see it when viewing your own account information on Instagram. Editing your date of birth on Facebook will also change it on Instagram. If you don’t have a Facebook account or if you have not connected your accounts, you can add or edit your birthday directly on Instagram.

Building age-appropriate and safer experiences

In the coming months, we will use the birthday information you share with us to create more tailored experiences, such as education around account controls and recommended privacy settings for young people.

Strengthening messaging privacy

Lastly, we are also taking steps to help you control who can send you direct messages on Instagram. This gives you the ability to allow only people you follow to message and add you to group threads. People who enable this setting will no longer receive messages, group message requests or story replies from anyone they have not chosen to follow.

These newest updates are part of our ongoing commitment to ensuring Instagram remains a safe and supportive place, especially for the youngest people in our community. You can learn more in the Instagram Help Center.