Whatsapp raises the age requirement to 16 for the EU as part of GDPR

WhatsApp will update its terms and conditions of service to reflect the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) standards that were passed for the European Union. Basically, these rules say that services which collect data from users should have more restrictive privacy settings concerning personal information by default and additional collection of data should all be opt-in features and not the current opt-out situation.

As part of these standards for the EU, WhatsApp’s new terms and conditions will require users to be of at least 16 years old. The new terms will roll out over the next few weeks and will have users verify that they are 16 or older. WhatsApp hasn’t detailed exactly how the age verification process will work or if anyone will be able to enter any birth date as form of verification.

WhatsApp cares deeply about your privacy and security. Every message and call is secured by end-to-end encryption so that no one, not even WhatsApp, can read or listen to your conversations. In the coming weeks, you will be able to download and see the limited data that we collect. This feature will be rolling out to all users around the world on the newest version of the app.

In an update coming in the not-so-distant future, WhatsApp will allow users to download all the information that WhatsApp collects about them. As a Facebook product, WhatsApp, along with Facebook and Oculus have all been updating their terms of service to reflect the EU’s GDPR.

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