Highlights
- WhatsApp has launched parent-supervised accounts for under-13s with access limited to messaging and calling only.
- Parents can monitor activity through alerts and a six-digit PIN controlling group invites, chat requests and profile changes.
- The move comes as countries including the UK, Denmark, Germany and Spain push to restrict social media access .
To set up a pre-teen account, parents or guardians need both their own device and the child's device to authenticate the account via QR code.
By default, parents receive alerts when pre-teens add, block or report a contact. Optional alerts can also be turned on for activities including the pre-teen changing their name or profile picture, receiving a new chat request, joining or leaving a group, a group turning on disappearing messages, and deleting a chat or contact.
All these settings are protected by a six-digit PIN that parents can set and change from their own device.
Privacy and safety
All chats and calls remain end-to-end encrypted and private. Pre-teens will see a context card when receiving messages from people not in their contacts, showing whether the unknown contact shares any groups with them and which country they are from.
The app also blurs images from unknown contacts by default and allows pre-teens to silence calls from unknown numbers.
All chat requests are stored in a separate folder locked behind the parent PIN, as are group invite links.
Parents can also view group information including the number of members and the admin's identity before accepting any group request.
When pre-teens get older they will receive a notification that their account can be converted to a standard account, with Meta planning to introduce an option for parents to delay this transition by up to 12 months.
The rollout is beginning in select regions before gradually expanding over the next few months. The launch comes as more than three billion people worldwide use WhatsApp, including large numbers of children.
Countries including the UK, Denmark, Germany and Spain are already moving to restrict or ban social media access for users under a certain age, putting pressure on platforms to introduce stronger safety measures.
