Parents got a new tool to monitor who their kids are in touch with on the mobile messaging app WhatsApp on Wednesday, September 30.
Meta’s suite of tools is voluntary and available to help parents and teens select the WhatsApp experience that’s best for them, the company said. For instance, parents will be able to choose specific privacy settings on WhatsApp Teen Accounts such as who can see the teen user’s profile photo or add them to groups.
Also, they can opt to be alerted when their teen joins a group, leaves a group, or when a group their teen is a member of adds additional members to the group. They will also have the ability to select the specific ways that their teen can utilise Channels, the condition updates that they can watch, as well as who can view their updates.
In order to change these settings, teens will need their parent’s approval via a PIN also set by the parents. The teen-focused safety features are also present, with an option to set a default 13+ age restriction or a more conservative ‘Limited Content’ option that parents can choose.
With governments in the world turning to ban or limit children’s use of social media due to increasing concerns about social media addiction and online safety of children, the announcement by WhatsApp is welcomed.
“We’re developing these controls gradually, according to the families’ feedback on what they’re looking for. All these controls are designed to enable open dialogue with teenagers about their use of WhatsApp while maintaining privacy for their personal messages,” WhatsApp said in a blog post.
The set-up is relatively easy and simple. All it takes from parents is one PIN to begin receiving alerts and stay in the loop. The new protections will not impact WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption, which keeps all personal messages and calls between teens and others secret and out of WhatsApp’s reach.
This March, WhatsApp also added new “parent-managed” accounts for those under 13 years old.
The user must be under 13 years old or the minimum age as stipulated in the user’s country to set up these accounts. In the meantime, the parent/guardian must be 18 years old or above. Parent-managed accounts are offered on the gadget with the most recent version of WhatsApp for iPhone or Android.
