Instagram is launching its Teen Accounts feature in India, one of its largest markets with over 350 million users. This initiative aims to strengthen safety measures for young users by introducing stricter privacy settings, content controls, and parental supervision options.

Originally introduced last year in countries like the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia, Instagram automatically migrated users under 16 to this new setup. Now, Indian teens will also benefit from these enhanced safety features.

Instagram Teen Accounts

Teen Accounts are designed to provide young users with a safer online experience by restricting interactions, limiting content exposure, and involving parents in certain account settings.

By default, these accounts are set to private, ensuring that only approved followers can view their posts. Additionally, Meta, Instagram’s parent company, has implemented messaging restrictions, allowing teens to receive messages only from people they are already connected with on Instagram or other Meta platforms.

Parental Supervision

A key feature of Teen Accounts is the ability for parents to monitor their child’s Instagram activity.

For users under 16, parents must approve certain account setting changes, while for those over 16, parental supervision is optional. While parents cannot read private messages, ensuring a balance between privacy and safety, they can view their child’s interactions, set daily screen time limits, and even restrict app usage during specific hours.

Content Restrictions

Meta is taking major steps to protect teens from harmful content by automatically blocking offensive words and phrases on teen accounts. Additionally, posts related to fighting or certain beauty products will no longer appear in Explore or Reels. Instead, teens can customize their content preferences by choosing topics like sports, crafts, dance, music, food, and technology, ensuring they engage with more age-appropriate and relevant content.

How Instagram Verifies Teen Users

Age verification remains a major challenge for social media platforms, as many users misrepresent their age. To tackle this, Meta has introduced advanced verification methods like ID verification and video selfies to accurately confirm a user’s real age. These measures are designed to ensure that only eligible users can access the safety features of Teen Accounts.

India’s New Data Protection Rules

India has proposed draft rules under its data protection law that may require platforms to obtain verifiable parental consent before processing the data of users under 18. If finalised, these regulations could push companies like Meta to strengthen their protections for young users. With the launch of Teen Accounts, Instagram is already moving in this direction.