Google this week will begin using machine learning to estimate users’ ages in order to tailor ad experiences more appropriately for minors, the company said in a blog post Wednesday.
The technology will use behavior like search queries and the kinds of videos they’ve consumed on YouTube to help determine whether a user is under 18.
When a user is flagged as likely to be under the age of 18, the system will notify the user and automatically implement guardrails across Google’s products, including disabling ad personalization and restricting “age-sensitive ad categories” such as alcohol, gambling, weight loss, and high fat and sugar food and beverages.
Users Google identifies as minors will also be barred from accessing apps restricted to adult users in the Google Play store and will automatically be opted into YouTube’s Digital Wellbeing program, which includes features like content protections, limiting repeat views of some kinds of videos, and reminders to take breaks from the platform. The Timeline setting in Google Maps, which keeps a chronological record of places the user has visited, will also be switched off for users estimated to be under 18.
Google will test the new feature, called ‘age assurance,’ for some signed-out users in the U.S. over the coming weeks.
The changes were summarized in the blog post as part of the company’s efforts to “further protect young people as they use Google products” and were shared with some Google advertising customers via email Wednesday afternoon.
The development follows a February announcement from YouTube CEO Neal Mohan that outlined Google’s plans to expand advertising protections for minors using machine learning this year.
Last fall, Google accused some advertisers of purposefully targeting teens on YouTube, in violation of the platform’s policy, ADWEEK previously reported.
The rollout of Google’s ‘age assurance’ tool comes just months after Meta introduced a similar product to Instagram that can scan for indicators that minors are lying about their age—to help ensure that under-18 users are using safeguarded ‘Teen Accounts’ rather than an unrestricted version of the app.
