WhatsApp parental controls for teens: Can parents read messages? What they can see and change. All you need to know
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WhatsApp parental controls explained: What parents can monitor on teen accounts Photograph: (Canva)
WhatsApp is rolling out optional parental controls for teens, allowing parents to manage privacy settings, receive group activity alerts and restrict Channels and Meta AI. Can they read their teen's messages too? Here's all you need to know about the new WhatsApp update.
WhatsApp is rolling out new parental controls for teenagers, giving parents more ways to manage privacy settings and stay informed about their children's activity without giving them access to private chats. The move comes amid rising concerns about safety and well-being surrounding young children's use of social media, and as governments impose greater pressure on technology companies over children's online safety.
Meta, WhatsApp's parent company, said the new tools are designed to help parents and teens configure a safer experience together.
What can parents see on WhatsApp?
Parents will be able to receive notifications when their teenager joins or leaves a group. They can also be notified if a group the teen belongs to experiences a significant increase in membership.
WhatsApp is not, however, giving parents the ability to read their teenager's personal conversations.
The company says personal messages remain end-to-end encrypted, meaning neither WhatsApp nor a parent can read them. Calls also remain protected by end-to-end encryption.
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Privacy settings can be controlled by parents
The new tools allow parents to manage some of the privacy choices on a teen's account. These include deciding who can see the teenager's profile photo and who can add them to WhatsApp groups. Parents can also manage who their teen sees and who can see their teen's Status updates.
A parent-set PIN will be used when a teenager attempts to make certain privacy settings less restrictive.
Parents can restrict Channels and Meta AI
WhatsApp is also giving parents controls over its Channels feature, which allows organisations, public figures and other users to distribute updates.
Parents can choose to allow all Channels, restrict access to parent-approved Channels or prevent their teen from viewing Channels altogether. They can also decide whether the teenager is allowed to create Channels.
For Meta AI, parents can choose between the standard experience and a more restricted “Limited” setting, which limits the topics a teenager can discuss with the AI assistant.
Also read | Australian teens defy under-16 social media bans by using dog pictures. So, how 'safe' are they?
Is the feature available in India?
Unlike some restrictions imposed directly by governments or platforms, WhatsApp's new parental controls are optional. Parents and teenagers can set them up together, with WhatsApp describing them as tools intended to support conversations about online safety and privacy.
They are being rolled out gradually, so they may not yet be available in every region.
WhatsApp minimum age remains 13
WhatsApp says users must be at least 13 years old to use the service, although the minimum age is higher in some countries. The company has also begun introducing age-verification measures for certain features and says age information can be used to provide age-appropriate experiences.
