After Instagram, Facebook and Messenger, the Parental control also arrives on WhatsAppThe new tools, available globally also in Italy, can be added to an existing account of a teenager aged 13 and over and allow them to parents to exercise greater supervision over the use of the app, while still leaving the boy in control of his account.
The news comes at a time of growing concern for the safety of minors on digital platforms. In August Meta has reached an agreement with a coalition of American states to settle a lawsuit on the alleged addiction of minors to social media, with an outlay of nearly 17 billion dollars. The issue is also at the center of the debate in Europe: on September 17, the European Commission the Kids Act was presented, with proposals to strengthen the protection of minors online, while for the autumn the Digital Fairness Act is expected.
For Meta, supervision tools for teenagers are nothing new. Teen accounts are already available on Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger, aimed at users. between 13 and 17 yearsSimilar functions are also present on platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Snapchat. According to Eurostat data, young people between the ages of 13 and 18 in Europe spend an average of 4 hours online per day on school days and 6 hours on weekends.
What parents can control on WhatsApp
The new parental control is one optional and flexible tool, which parents and teens can set up together. Once enabled, it allows you to adjust some account privacy settings.
The parent can, for example, decide who can see the profile photo of the son and who can add it to groupsYou can also receive a notification when your teen joins or leaves a group and when a group chat they're part of experiences a significant increase in the number of participants. This way, you can gain greater awareness of some of your child's activities on the app, without accessing his conversationsProtected settings are in fact locked by a PIN, chosen during setup: if the teenager wants to change them, he or she must obtain parental approval.
Supervision also applies to other WhatsApp features. Parents can determine how their child can interact with WhatsApp. can use the Channels, which status updates they can see, and who can view the ones they post. There's also a specific setting for Meta AI. Parents can choose between the default experience intended for users aged 13 and over and "Limited content”, the most restrictive option designed to further reduce the content accessible to teenagers.
Parents can't read their children's chats
However, supervision has a precise limit: the parent cannot access personal conversations of the child. Activating parental control does not allow you to read messages nor listen to callsWhatsApp specifies that, even with controls enabled, chats and calls remain protected by end-to-end encryption: their content remains accessible only to the people involved and cannot be seen or heard, not even by the app.
To activate the feature, you need to link the teenager's account to the parent's account. configuration can be done together, choosing the most suitable settings, and is protected by the PIN set by the parent. The controls can be modified over time or disabled. WhatsApp considers them a first step and explains that it intends to gradually develop them based on feedback from families.
