The Right Meta Account for You
To help everyone have a fun, enriching, and age-appropriate experience on the Meta Quest Platform, we’re asking everyone who uses a Meta account to sign in to Meta Quest 2 and/or 3 and confirm their age by re-entering their birthdate. We’re doing this to help ensure that everyone on the Meta Quest Platform has access to relevant tools, content, and protections. Read on for more details.
The Right Account For You
There’s something for everyone on the Meta Quest Platform, whether that’s surviving a zombie apocalypse, catching a concert with friends, or visiting the International Space Station with your family. Understanding the ages of people on Meta Quest helps both us and developers provide the right experience, settings, and protections, especially for teens and preteens. For example:
Adults (18+): When you set up your Meta account, you’ll choose if you want a private or public profile and who can see the app you’re currently using and your activity (like recent apps or achievements). Active status is shown to followers and connections by default if you’re 18 or over, although you can turn it off at any time.
Teens (13-17): A teen Meta account has more privacy-oriented default settings. The profile is set to private automatically, meaning the teen approves all follower requests. Activity, active status, and the app in use are also automatically hidden to others unless the teen decides to share them. We also have parental supervision tools for teens ages 13-17 on Meta Quest, making it easier for parents and guardians to customize their teens’ experience and support healthy conversations about safety in VR.
Preteens (10-12): Preteens have the most restrictive account settings. Preteen accounts are called parent-managed accounts, and they require parents to set up an account for their 10-, 11-, or 12-year-old. Preteens must have their parent’s approval in order to set up an account. Preteen profiles default to private, and the activity, active status, and app-in-use are likewise set to private, with parents given control over these settings. Additionally, parents control whether their preteen can download or use an app, and parents can block access to specific apps at any time.
How It Works
Once you receive the prompt, which started rolling out in late March, you’ll need to log into your Meta account and enter your birthdate within the next 30 days. Birthdate information is not visible to others unless you choose to share it. Once you enter your birthdate, we’ll help make sure you’re in the right account, which is designed with default settings and tools based on your age.
If you accidentally input the wrong birthdate, you’ll have the opportunity to verify your age using either an ID or a credit card. Once verified, you’ll be able to use your Meta account again.
Please be sure to enter your birthdate within the 30-day window to avoid your account being temporarily blocked. This does not mean your account is gone, but you will be unable to use your Meta account with your Quest device until you enter your date of birth. (More info here.)
Our Approach To Age
On our app store, we want to make it easier for developers to better understand the ages of people who use their apps so they can provide age-appropriate experiences for preteens, teens, and adults. Parents, in turn, can trust that apps are providing the most age-appropriate experience and protections the app offers for their child’s age.
One way we do this is by continuing to invest in our own User Age Group APIs, which are designed to help developers understand how old their users are. For example, when someone launches an app on the Meta Quest Platform, these APIs enable Meta to share whether the app is being used by a preteen, teen, or adult account. The app is then able to use this information to tailor a more age-appropriate experience and to properly protect young people’s data.
Family Center
You can learn more about the specific protections we’ve built for preteens in parent-managed accounts from our earlier announcement post. Visit the Family Center if you want to create a new parent-managed Meta account or explore our other Parental Supervision settings and tools for teens. And check out the Quest Parent Guide for more info.
