WhatsApp has officially announced a new feature that will please parents of schoolchildren in particular. The platform now allows the creation of a special account for children who are completely under the supervision of their legal guardians.
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Pro To set up a child account, you need to have both the child's phone and the parent's device on hand so that the two accounts can be linked. Once set up, all key changes and privacy on the child's device are protected by a special parental PIN code. This ensures that parents can be sure that their child will not change the security rules they have set for them.
The main advantage of these accounts is absolute control over who the child writes to. Parents can approve who the child can contact, which groups they can join, and even have the ability to control message requests from unknown users. I see it as a kind of digital filter that only allows the child to communicate with people who the parents personally approve.
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Even though parents have extensive authority over the account, WhatsApp emphasizes that the content of the conversations themselves remains private. All personal messages and calls continue to be protected by end-to-end encryption, which means that they cannot be read by anyone in WhatsAppor a parent through remote management. The entire system is designed to provide children with a safe space to communicate, while giving adults peace of mind by keeping track of who their children are spending time with online.
It seems to me that WhatsApp is trying to get rid of the label of a platform where anyone can write to anyone. I think this is a sensible step, because giving a smartphone to a child these days without any restrictions is a path to hell. The only catch is that the new feature is apparently spreading slowly so it is possible that it will be WhatsApp you won't have it available yet.
