Instagram now requires all new users to provide their birthdays when making an account.

The reason is to prevent underage people from joining the photo-sharing service, to help keep young people safer, and to offer more age-appropriate experience.

Instagram said that it will use users¢¥ birthdays to educate them around account controls and recommended privacy settings. Teenagers often have no way of proving their age; however, the company believes that most users are honest about their age.

In the past, Instagram was criticized for its policy of only requiring users to confirm that they were at least 13 years old when creating an account. Critics said that this increased the risk of children seeing inappropriate content and that collecting data about people under the age of 13 can be illegal.