WhatsApp raises minimum age to use the service to 16 in Europe
WhatsApp, the popular messaging service owned by Facebook Inc, is raising its minimum age from 13 to 16 in Europe to help it comply with new data privacy rules coming into force next month.
Instant messaging application WhatsApp is raising the lower limit of age to use its services to 16 from 13 in Europe.
The rule is coming ahead of the introduction of new data privacy rules in the EU next month.
WhatsApp will ask European users to confirm they are at least 16 years old when they are prompted to agree on new terms of service and a privacy policy provided by a new WhatsApp Ireland Ltd entity in the next few weeks.
It is not clear how or if the age limit will be checked given the limited data requested and held by the service.
Facebook, which has a separate data policy, is taking a different approach to teens aged between 13 and 15 in order to comply with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law.
It is asking them to nominate a parent or guardian to give permission for them to share information on the platform, otherwise, they will not see a fully personalised version of the social media platform.
But WhatsApp, which had more than 1.5 billion users in January according to Facebook, said in a blog post it was not asking for any new rights to collect personal information in the agreement it has created for the European Union.
“Our goal is simply to explain how we use and protect the limited information we have about you,” it said.
The company also added that they do not share information with Facebook. “We are not currently sharing account information to improve your product and ads experience on Facebook. As we have said in the past, we want to work closely with other Facebook companies in the future and we will keep you updated as we develop our plans,” it said.