Over the last week, several Instagram users began reporting that the photo-sharing app was locking them out of their accounts, and asking them to confirm their identity by showing photo ID.
These incidents, which CNET first covered Tuesday, were reportedly a result of Instagram's new terms of service, which came into effect on Jan. 19.
At first, users were worried that their accounts were hacked. But Talking Points Memo confirmed Friday that the ID requests were actually legitimate, and came from Instagram and Facebook, which now owns the photo-sharing app.
"This is just a general practice for both Facebook and Instagram to request photo IDs for verification purposes depending on what type of violation may have occurred," a Facebook spokesperson told Talking Points Memo. "Unfortunately, I can’t share more with you beyond that as we don’t go into details beyond that."
Identification is requested in cases when the social networks suspect that their terms of services have been violated. It aims to confirm who's behind an account, and perhaps to determine whether a user is underage (the minimum age to use both services is 13).
As Instagram doesn't require users to provide their real names, it's unclear why the photo-sharing app would ask for official ID. Facebook, on the other hand, does ask for users' real names. The social-network giant declined to comment on the matter.
Instagram's terms of service give the company the right to "refuse access to the Service to anyone for any reason at any time."
Data source: via Mashable (by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai)
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