How Old Must You Be to Have A Facebook Account - Parents Should Know This!

How Old Must You Be To Have A Facebook Account - Have you ever tried to create a Facebook account and gotten this error message: "You are ineligible to sign up for Facebook"? If so, it's very likely you don't fulfill Facebook's age limitation.

Facebook as well as various other online social media sites websites and email services are forbidden by government legislation from enabling youngsters under 13 create accounts without the consent of their moms and dads or legal guardians.

How Old Must You Be To Have A Facebook Account

How Old Must You Be To Have A Facebook Account


If you were baffled after being averted by Facebook's age limitation, there's a stipulation right there in the "Statement of Rights and Responsibilities" you approve when you produce a Facebook account: "You will not use Facebook if you are under 13"

Age Limitation for Gmail and Yahoo!
The same goes for online email solutions consisting of Google's Gmail as well as Yahoo! Mail.

If you're not 13 years old, you'll get this message when attempting to register for a Gmail account:"Google could not create your account. In order to have a Google Account, you must meet certain age requirements."

If you're under the age of 13 and also attempt to enroll in a Yahoo! Mail account, you'll additionally be averted with this message:"Yahoo! is concerned about the safety and privacy of all its users, particularly children. For this reason, parents of children under the age of 13 who wish to allow their children access to the Yahoo! Services must create a Yahoo! Family Account."

Federal Law Establishes Age Limit
So why do Facebook, Gmail, as well as Yahoo! restriction customers under 13 without parental consent? They're needed to under the Kid's Online Privacy Security Act, a federal regulation passed in 1998.

The Kid's Online Personal privacy Defense Act has actually been updated since it was signed right into regulation, consisting of modifications that try to attend to the raised use smart phones such as iPhones as well as iPads and social networking services consisting of Facebook as well as Google+.

Amongst the updates was a demand that web site as well as social media solutions can not accumulate geolocation details, photos or videos from customers under the age of 13 without alerting and obtaining permission from moms and dads or guardians.

How Some Youths Get Around the Age Limit
In spite of Facebook's age demand as well as government legislation, numerous minor users are recognized to have created accounts and keep Facebook profiles. They do so by lying about their age, oftentimes with full knowledge of their parents.

In 2012, released reports estimated some 7.5 million kids had Facebook accounts of the 900 million individuals that were using the social media at the time. Facebook stated the number of underage users highlighted "just how tough it is to apply age limitations on the web, specifically when moms and dads want their kids to gain access to online web content and solutions.".

Facebook enables users to report youngsters under the age of 13. "Keep in mind that we'll immediately remove the account of any kind of child under the age of 13 that's reported to us via this kind," the firm mentions. Facebook is likewise dealing with a system that would certainly allow youngsters under 13 to create an account that would certainly be connected to those held by their moms and dads.

Is the Kid's Online Privacy Defense Act Effective?
Congress meant the Children's Online Personal privacy Protection Act to protect youths from predative advertising and marketing in addition to stalking as well as kidnapping, both of which ended up being more widespread as access to the Internet and also personal computers grew, according to the Federal Trade Compensation, which is in charge of enforcing the law.

However several companies have merely restricted their advertising and marketing initiatives towards individuals age 13 and also older, indicating that kids who exist about their age are very to be subjected to such campaigns and also the use of their individual information.

In 2010, a Seat Web study located that: Teens continue to be avid users of social networking websites – as of September 2009, 73% of online American teens ages 12 to 17 used an online social network website, a statistic that has continued to climb upwards from 55% in November 2006 and 65% in February 2008.