Meta-owned instant messaging platform WhatsApp has introduced a new ‘Parental Control & Safety Settings’ to further strengthen online safety standards for teenagers and younger children. This step has been taken in view of the increasing incidents of children becoming victims of cyber bullying, unwanted contacts and online fraud in the digital age. Till now, minor users could easily change the settings of the app as per their convenience, but after the implementation of this new security cover, teenagers will not be able to tamper with their important privacy settings without the permission of the parents.
The main basis of this new safety feature is ‘Parental Access PIN’ (Parental PIN Verification). When parents sync their child’s WhatsApp account with Parental Control mode, they will get the option to set a secret 4 or 6 digit security PIN. Once this security cycle is activated, the child will not be able to change the following settings from his phone unless he enters the PIN set by the parent:
- Last Seen & Online Status: Teenagers will not be able to make it ‘Everyone’ (public) of their own free will.
- Profile Photo & About Visibility: To prevent the photo from being visible to strangers, it can be limited to only safe contacts (My Contacts).
- Group Invitation Settings (Group Privacy): There will be a complete ban on adding the child to any unknown WhatsApp group by any unknown person or group administrator without permission.
- Read receipts and auto-download settings: Auto-download of media files and unilateral changes to security alerts will stop.
Meta has clearly underlined that this safety tool is designed only to set account privacy settings and online boundaries. Core feature of WhatsApp i.e. End-to-End Encryption Will remain completely intact. This simply means that:
- Parents or any third party will not be able to read or listen to the child’s personal chats, voice calls or video calls.
- This tool is not designed to spy on the child, but to keep him safe from online threats and inappropriate contact from strangers.
The process to activate and manage this feature has been kept very simple and user-friendly:
- Family Center Linking: Parents will go to the ‘Settings’ menu of their WhatsApp and select the ‘Family Center’ or ‘Privacy Supervision’ option.
- Invitation or QR Code: Parents will send a secure linking request (QR Code scan or authorization link) to the teenager’s WhatsApp from their phone.
- Consent and PIN Setup: Once the request is accepted on the child’s device, the parent will generate a Master Security PIN (Parental PIN) on their device.
- Lock Settings: Once the PIN is set, sensitive privacy settings on the child’s phone will be ‘greyed out’ (locked). A parental PIN prompt will appear on the screen on any future change attempts.
With this new update, an in-built ‘Unknown Contacts Shield’ will also actively work on teenager accounts. If the teenager receives a message for the first time from an unknown number (which is not saved in the contact list), a warning card will immediately pop-up on the WhatsApp screen. In this, users will get the option to block numbers, report and read safety tips, so that children can remain safe from any kind of online honeytrap, cyber scam or harassment unknowingly.