News in Short

• WhatsApp is introducing new parental controls for teen accounts.
• Parents can manage who can add their teens to groups.
• Guardians can control who teens interact with through Channels and Status.
• Parents can control who can see a teen’s Status and profile picture.
• Parents can receive alerts when teens join or leave groups.
• Notifications can also be triggered when a group reaches 30, 100 or 250 members.

WhatsApp is introducing a new set of parental controls aimed at giving guardians more control over teen accounts.

The new tools allow parents to manage group interactions, Status visibility, profile picture access and certain Channel activity. They also extend parental controls to Meta AI conversations and content settings.

Parents Get More Control Over Teen Groups

The new controls give parents more visibility and control over how teens interact with groups.

Guardians can decide who can add their teen to WhatsApp groups. They can also receive notifications when a teen joins or leaves a group.

WhatsApp can additionally alert parents when a group that their teen belongs to reaches 30, 100 or 250 members.

These controls are designed to give parents more information about changes in their teen’s group activity.

Status and Profile Visibility Can Be Managed

Parents can also manage aspects of their teen’s visibility on WhatsApp.

The new controls allow guardians to decide who can see their teen’s Status updates. They can also control who their teen can see through Status and manage access to the teen’s profile picture.

WhatsApp is also adding controls for Channels, allowing parents to limit how teens use the feature.

Parent Controls Are Protected by a PIN

The new settings are protected by a PIN created by the parent.

As a result, teens cannot independently change these parental settings without approval from the parent.

WhatsApp also gives guardians the option to turn the controls off completely.

New Content Settings for Meta AI

WhatsApp is also expanding parental controls to Meta AI.

Parents can now choose between the default 13+ setting and a stricter Limited Content option.

The Limited Content setting disables certain private processing-based features. These include incognito chat and message summaries.

This gives parents another way to determine how their teen interacts with Meta AI through WhatsApp.

WhatsApp Keeps Messages End-to-End Encrypted

Despite the additional parental controls, WhatsApp says messages and calls remain end-to-end encrypted.

According to the company, no one can see the contents of those messages and calls.

The new controls therefore focus on account settings, interactions and content options rather than giving parents access to the private contents of conversations.

Meta Expands Teen Safety Features

The WhatsApp update comes as Meta continues adding safety tools for younger users across its platforms.

According to the supplied report, Meta has introduced several child and teen safety features this year. These include additional content controls on Instagram, parental controls for Meta AI and parent-linked WhatsApp accounts for pre-teens.

The company has also introduced alerts for parents when children search for self-harm content on Instagram.

The latest WhatsApp update adds another layer of parental controls, with a focus on group activity, visibility and Meta AI settings.