Instagram rolls out new security features for underage children

To make the social media platform a friendlier yet safer place for children, Instagram has decided to launch some safety changes in the app.

To catch "suspicious behaviour", Instagram is rolling out software updates in Australia, Japan, France, the US and the UK. This update in the software will catch any adult trying to illegally connect with underage children through the platform.

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"Wherever we can, we want to stop young people from hearing from adults they don’t know, or that they don’t want to hear from," Instagram said in a blog post.

This has come after the Facebook-owned platform decided to introduce a similar app tailored for children only.

Now, in the new safety features, all the accounts created for underage children will be set to "private" mode by default instead of being given the option to make it public or private. This will help limit the audience of underage children.

The underage children who already have public accounts will be alerted with notifications and tutorials of making their account private and also the importance of keeping a limited audience.

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"Encouraging young people to have private accounts is a big step in the right direction when it comes to stopping unwanted contact from adults," Instagram said. "But we're going even further to make young people's accounts difficult to find for certain adults."

In addition to this, Instagram will also keep a look out for all suspicious accounts, mainly those blocked or reported by children. "By 'potentially suspicious behavior,' we mean accounts belonging to adults that may have recently been blocked or reported by a young person for example," Instagram explained.

All the adult accounts that have been blocked or reported even once for such reasons will not be allowed to follow young people and will also not be able to view any content from the accounts of young people.