Facebook has been facing a lot of complaints and issues regarding its data privacy rules. The new data privacy rules coming into force next month has led to Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp raising minimum age requirement from 13 years to 16 years in Europe.
The messaging platform will ask its European users to authenticate if they are at least 16 years old when they will be asked to agree to new terms of service and a privacy policy provided by a new WhatsApp Ireland Ltd entity in the upcoming weeks.
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WhatsApp raising minimum age requirement is to be seen as Mark Zuckerberg’s way of dealing with his current problems. It is not yet revealed how will the age be verified as the app requests and holds only limited data.
WhatsApp Raising Minimum Age Requirement: European General Data Protection Law
The social networking platform has a different data policy. The company will adopt a different method to deal with kids between 13 and 15 years of age. This will be done in compliance with the European General Data Protection law. They will be asked to nominate a parent or a guardian for permission to share information on the platform. Otherwise, a full proper version of the platform won’t be accessible.
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In a blog post earlier, Facebook said that they weren’t asking WhatsApp users for any permissions or rights to access personal information in the created it has made with the European Union. The blog post stated, “Our goal is simply to explain how we use and protect the limited information we have about you.”
WhatsApp was founded in 2009. It has come under pressure from some European countries regarding its end-to-end encrypted system, and its sharing of data with Facebook. With the recent Facebook Cambridge Analytica case also, it has led to WhatsApp raising minimum age requirements.
GDPR
For the rest of the world, the minimum age requirement for WhatsApp users will remain as 13 years old. GDPR gives Europeans the right to know what data is stored on them and the right to delete it also.
European lawyers and regulators have already stopped a WhatsApp move to change its privacy and security policy. It would enable users to share phone numbers with Facebook.
The company has already stated that it wants to work closely with other Facebook companies in the future and is interested in sharing such data for better purposes.
Other changes in WhatsApp include allowing users to download a report detailing the data it holds on them. It will be rolled out to all users using the newest version of the application.
