WhatsApp, owned by the corporation Meta (recognized as extremist and banned in Russia), has introduced new parental control tools for home users. Families can now manage privacy settings, groups, channels, statuses, and access to Meta AI for teenage accounts.
Parents will not be able to read their teen’s personal chats, as all messages and calls remain protected by end-to-end encryption. The features are entirely voluntary and are designed to be configured together with the teenager.
Parents can choose who sees the teen’s profile photo and who can add the teen to groups. Changing or relaxing these limits requires the parent’s PIN code; restrictions cannot be removed through ordinary settings alone.
Parents will receive notifications whenever the teen joins or leaves a group or when the number of participants changes noticeably. Additional controls let families set rules for channel usage, which statuses the teen can view, and the audience for the teen’s own posts.
For Meta AI, parents can select either the standard 13+ mode or the more restrictive Limited Content mode. The exact content limitations of the stricter mode are not detailed in the announcement.
All parental settings are secured by one PIN code, which parents can use to modify or completely disable the controls. WhatsApp states that the tools will be developed in stages, taking family feedback into account.
