WhatsApp Makes Major Change, See How It Will Affect You

WhatsApp Makes Major Change, See How It Will Affect You

Popular messaging app owned by meta, Whatsapp is reducing the minimum age for its popular messaging service from 16 to 13 in the UK and Europe, including the US and Australia.

However, the age restriction relies on the user’s honesty in declaring their age, and parents monitoring children’s phones to ensure they haven’t been using it before turning 16.

WhatsApp is making a number of other changes to its terms and conditions following the introduction of the EU’s new Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act.

Other updates include more information about content moderation in Channels and what is and isn’t allowed on the app.

However, there will be no change in the platform’s end-to-end encryption.

The social medium platform also has a number of other functions to maintain privacy, including those the NSPCC recommends using to protect children’s safety, such as the default ‘privacy’ setting and the ability to block contacts.

A spokesperson for WhatsApp said: ‘These updates for users in the European Region do not change our commitment to user privacy and do not expand any data sharing when messaging other WhatsApp users.

Wherever you are in the world, we protect all personal messages with end-to-end encryption, which means no one, not even WhatsApp, can read or listen to them.’

Whatsapp confirmed one major change set to be introduced soon will be the ability to message other platforms from within WhatsApp. Known as ‘interoperability’.

However, it is unknown which other platforms owned by WhatsApp’s parent company, meta, it will connect to beyond Facebook Messenger.