Instagram Teen Accounts

This is a big update that will fundamentally change the Instagram experience for millions of teens, and we need to make sure everything works correctly. We plan to place teens on Instagram into Teen Accounts within 60 days of starting roll-out in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, and teens around the world will start to get Instagram Teen Accounts in January.

We know teens may lie about their age and that’s why we’re requiring teens to verify their age in new ways, like if they attempt to use a new account with an adult birthday. We’re also building new technology to find teens that have lied about their age to automatically place them in protected settings.

With Instagram Teen Accounts, teens automatically get safety settings that limit contact and inappropriate content, as well as settings to ensure their time on Instagram is well spent. These built-in default settings include private accounts, restrictions on messaging, restrictions on who can tag and mention them, reminders to leave the app after 60 minutes each day, notifications muted overnight and more.

Teens aged 13-15 cannot change these settings to be less strict without a parent’s permission. Additionally, for any teens who are enrolled in parental supervision (irrespective of their age), they’ll need a parent’s approval to change these settings to a less strict state.

No. Parents do not have to approve their teen’s usage of Instagram. Instagram Teen Accounts are designed to provide parents with peace of mind that their teens are automatically placed into safe, built-in protections. If teens aged 13-15 want to change an automatic setting to be less strict, they need a parent’s permission to do so.

With parental supervision enabled, parents can approve or deny their teen’s requests to change settings. Soon, parents will also be able to change teens’ default settings to a stricter state on their behalf if they have parental supervision enabled.

Both the teen and their parent or guardian must have or create an Instagram account to use supervision.

We’ll bring Instagram Teen Accounts to teens around the world by early next year. This is a big update that will fundamentally change the Instagram experience of millions of teens, and we want to take the time to get it right. So, we’re starting with the US, UK, Canada and Australia now, and will begin moving teens in the European Union into Instagram Teen Accounts later this year.

To learn more about Instagram Teen Accounts please visit the Help Center.

We’re starting with Instagram and will bring Teen Accounts to additional apps in the coming months.

No – parents still won’t be able to read their teen’s messages. This new feature means they can see who their teen has been chatting with in the last 7 days, but not the content of those messages. As with all our parental supervision features, this is designed to strike the balance between helping parents be more involved in their teen’s online experiences, while still protecting teens’ privacy and autonomy.

All teens, including creators, will be a part of the new Instagram Teen Accounts experience. Instagram Teen Accounts have been built to help address some of the issues we know creators may encounter, including unwanted contact like spam or scam DMs, or harmful interactions like bullying or harassment. To learn more about Instagram Teen Accounts for creators, please visit the Help Center.