Meta’s WhatsApp is rolling out a new feature that allows parents of under-13s to create and manage new user accounts for their pre-teens – a move that families have been pressing the Zuckerberg-owned platform for in recent years.

Announcing the news on its WhatsApp blog, Meta says that once the pre-teen account is created, parents and guardians can limit their child’s experience to just messaging and calling.

"These accounts come with strict new default settings, parental controls, and options for parents to guide their pre-teens' (under 13s) first messaging experiences," the messaging platform said in the blog post.

Accessible only with a “parental PIN,” the parent has full control of the account’s privacy settings, “empowering families to tailor their own experience,” the company said.

What parents can control inside WhatsApp

To set up a pre-teen account, parents will first need to have both their child’s device and their own physically nearby, as the accounts need to be linked while the devices are side by side.

Using WhatsApp's privacy controls settings, parents are able to:

• Choose who can contact the child’s account
• See when a child adds a new contact
• See and choose which groups the child can join
• Review message requests from unknown contacts
• Get updates about their child's activity
• Manage the account privacy settings

Parents can also customize how and when they receive notifications about their kids' activity, ranging from critical alerts to account updates, such as when one of the child’s contacts is blocked, when disappearing messages are turned on or off in a chat, and when a child’s name or profile picture is changed.

Parents will be able to view their pre-teen’s WhatsApp activity from either the child’s phone or their own, the company said, noting that critical alerts are automatic and cannot be turned off.

As with all WhatsApp accounts, all personal conversations “remain private and protected with end-to-end encryption,” WhatsApp says.

Tech platforms face pressure over kids’ safety

Currently, the minimum age to create a WhatsApp account, unless local laws say otherwise, is 13, leaving parents often to choose between the ability to digitally communicate with family members and potentially sacrificing their child's online safety.

Nations around the world have been restricting social media use for children of various ages in the past few years as concerns about mental health, child sexual predators, cyberbullying, and data privacy have come to the forefront.

However, not all nations are on board with passing broad legislation. On Wednesday, breaking from the pack, the UK voted against a proposed ban on social media for under-16s, citing the need to explore alternative options.

Meanwhile, social media bans have already been enacted in Australia, while proposals are being discussed across the EU, and at least eight US state legislatures have passed (or are planning to) their own restrictions, with some states requiring parental consent and others banning use altogether for certain ages.

In early March, the European Parliament proposed an amendment to limit teens under-16 from using social media without parental consent, and outright ban use for those under 13.

The state of Florida kicked off the New Year by implementing social media restrictions on children under 16 from opening accounts on certain platforms, also allowing those over 13 to create or keep accounts with parental permission.

In December, after nearly a year of national discussions, Australia's under-16s became the first in the world to be banned from social media, and it appears India may follow next, as government leaders there champion the cause.

Available to both iOS and Android users in the US now, parent-managed accounts will roll out gradually to other regions. WhatsApp says the parent-managed accounts will comply with the specific age restrictions in those regions.

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