WhatsApp Increases Minimum Age Limit for Users to 16 Years in Europe
With an aim to comply with Europe's GDPR, WhatsApp raises the minimum age bar for the users from 13 years to 16 years.
WhatsApp, a popular free messaging service owned by Facebook Inc has decided to raise the minimum age limit of the users from 13 years to 16 years in Europe. As a part of new data privacy policies, this move from WhatsApp will comply with Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which comes into effect on May 25. The European users will be required to confirm the minimum age limit when they are prompted to agree with the new terms of service and a privacy policy. See More: Job Search Made Easy by Google’s New Search Feature; Will Help Indians Find New Jobs
However, it is not clear how the free messaging service will check the given age or it will be checked given the limited data request and held by the service. Facebook, on the other hand, is approaching a different strategy altogether in order to comply with European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law as it has a separate data policy.
Founded in the year 2009, WhatsApp is facing tremendous pressure from the European governments in recent years due to its end-to-end encrypted messaging system. The company is also planning to share more data with its parent company. On the other hand, Facebook too is currently under scanners since the Data leak scandal that happened recently.
Moreover, the minimum age required for a WhatsApp users will remain 13 years in rest of the world in-line with its parent company. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the biggest overhaul of online privacy ever since the existence of Internet which gives Europeans the right to know what data is being stored. It also gives the right to delete such data, if necessary.
WhatsApp on Tuesday added new changes to the platform wherein the users can download a report detailing the data it holds like model and make of the device, contacts, groups and blocked numbers (if any). Read More: Facebook Stops Third-Party Apps from Stealing Users' Data
Apple Inc as well as several other tech organizations have confirmed that they plan to give the people of United States and elsewhere the same level of rights and protection that Europeans will receive.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 25, 2018 05:29 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).