WhatsApp Soon to Ban Under Sixteen from Using Its Service

WhatsApp would soon be increasing the minimum age limit for its users to sixteen throughout Europe.

Users of the most popular instant messaging service as per present policy have to be at least thirteen years of age, however, it seems that the company is planning to enforce much strict rules in future ahead of the introduction of the new data privacy rules in European Union next month.

Facebook-owned WhatsApp would be asking European users to confirm they are at least sixteen years in age when they are alerted to accept the new terms of service and an updated privacy policy in the coming weeks’ time.

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It is not confirmed yet that how would the company be verifying the answers provided by the users, given the limited data asked and held by the service.

WhatsApp had more than 1.5 billion users as of January, mentioned in one of its blog post that it would not be asking for any new rights to gather personal information in the agreement.

Other changes WhatsApp has announced include providing users with the access to download a report in detail of the data it holds on them—such as the make and model of the smartphone they use, their groups and contacts and details regarding any blocked numbers.

WhatsApp was founded back in the year 2009, it has come under a lot of pressure due to its end-to-end encrypted messages and it has now suspended the plan to increase the amount of data shared with Facebook, so the advertisers could be targeted more effectively.

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