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WhatsApp Raises Minimum Age In Europe To 16 Ahead of Data Law Change (reuters.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the terms-of-service dept.

WhatsApp is raising its minimum age from 13 to 16 in Europe to help it comply with new data privacy rules coming into force next month. The app will ask European users to confirm they are at least 16 years old when they are prompted to agree to new terms of service and a privacy policy provided by a new WhatsApp Ireland entity in the next few weeks. Reuters reports: Facebook, which has a separate data policy, is taking a different approach to teens aged between 13 and 15 in order to comply with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law. It is asking them to nominate a parent or guardian to give permission for them to share information on the platform, otherwise they will not see a fully personalized version of the social media platform. But WhatsApp, which had more than 1.5 billion users in January according to Facebook, said in a blog post it was not asking for any new rights to collect personal information in the agreement it has created for the European Union. WhatsApp's minimum age of use will remain 13 years in the rest of the world, in line with its parent.

39 comments

  1. I have no idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    why they are raising the age of consent. I started doing it when I was nine.

  2. Well, That will stop kids from clicking im 16+! by Highdude702 · · Score: 0

    This is stupid, I have been on the internet since i was a kid. I cant tell you how many times I said i was 13 when I was under.. And even more saying I was 18 when I was nowhere close. I am by no means advocating for having to give ID and prove someone is a certain age, I however this these kinds of laws are bullshit and everyone knows what really happens.

    1. Re:Well, That will stop kids from clicking im 16+! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah but they become non culpable and you become responsible, theres a difference which in turn deters its popularity.

    2. Re:Well, That will stop kids from clicking im 16+! by PPH · · Score: 1

      It might not stop kids from lying. But AI is getting better at weeding out underage users. And finding the real identities behind Internet pseudonyms. The result being people getting their accounts suspended.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    3. Re:Well, That will stop kids from clicking im 16+! by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

      You can not enter a contract with a minor as a business and maybe as an adult(?), That button afaik is a contract.

    4. Re:Well, That will stop kids from clicking im 16+! by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

      There are plenty of ways around this, unless people are going to completely block anonymous(proxy's and ToR) communication with their servers.

    5. Re:Well, That will stop kids from clicking im 16+! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, but there has to be something behind the premise. As an operator this leaves you in a exposed to an unwinnable legal situation, which people could quite easily take advantage of.

    6. Re:Well, That will stop kids from clicking im 16+! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But AI is getting better at weeding out underage users.

      Can't with WhatsApp. It's "supposed" to be P2P & SSL communication (well that's what it says every time you open a new chat). So I guess which is it? they are or they are not tracking you?

    7. Re:Well, That will stop kids from clicking im 16+! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Plenty of ways around this? How about lying about your age when you setup an account? Need parents approval? Make up some. There is no practical way to enforce any of this non-sense. The EU just loves churning out this type of nonsense since they are totally incapable of handling any important problems. Just like all those UN resolutions and International laws that also have no enforcement mechanisms. Although in this case the underage children lie about their age while the targets of UN resolutions and International laws lie about building nuclear weapons.

      It is not Facebook's, WhatsApp, or any other social media platforms responsibility to play nanny for the behavior of children. That is the parents responsibility and if they don't care why should anyone else?

    8. Re:Well, That will stop kids from clicking im 16+! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course minors can enter contracts, there's just typically limits to it. A kid buying a chocolate bar in the supermarket is entering a valid contract just as any adult would do.

    9. Re:Well, That will stop kids from clicking im 16+! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can not enter a contract with a minor as a business and maybe as an adult(?), That button afaik is a contract.

      Well, you can, but it requires approval from the parent or legal guardian.
      (This is for the data law in question, not for button agreements in general.)

      The best solution is of course to not collect private data that you don't need.
      WhatsApp probably could easily provide their service without having to store sensitive data, but then they wouldn't have anything to sell to advertisers.

    10. Re:Well, That will stop kids from clicking im 16+! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A retail seller and buyer do not enter into a contract. Their transaction is instantaneous.

    11. Re:Well, That will stop kids from clicking im 16+! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can not enter a contract with a minor as a business and maybe as an adult(?), That button afaik is a contract.

      Well, the button might be considered a contract, but it being "clicked" isn't necessarily tied to a person.

      The company knows full well that people just click the button without reading what it is about.
      Assume that you do what the lawyer thinks that you should do and print out the contract and sit down in the kitchen to read it.
      While you are at it your cat steps on your keyboard/mousekey/laptop and that leads to a button click, or you child wants to play on the computer and just clicks the button to get away from that boring page.
      In neither of those cases is the contract valid.

      If the company wants a valid contract they should ask for an electronic signature or have you fax a signed copy of the contract to them.
      Button clicks are just too volatile to use. No browser is written well enough to even guarantee that it didn't click the button for you.
      And for cases where the agree button is in a popup window I know that I have installed ask toolbar at least once just because I was typing on something else when that window popped up.
      This is pretty much equivalent of having a multi-page contract that you have someone sign on the last page that you then removes and places after a different contract.
      It will look like you agreed to the new contract but you didn't.

      It is a bit unfortunate that people are willing to click agree for contracts they can't be bothered to read.
      If they refused and returned the program we wouldn't have those EULAs and such a fuzzy legal situation.
      You don't sign anything when you buy an electric drill, and the need for the company to cover their own ass is way higher there.
      It should be the same for software.

    12. Re:Well, That will stop kids from clicking im 16+! by houghi · · Score: 1

      The law is not only about data you do not need. It is also about data you do need to do the business. Various data is needed to open e.g. a credit card. Not only do you need the name and phonenumber, you also do need proof of income, proof of adress, bank account details, email and phonenumber and some other things.

      So even if WatsApp would only store relative information and nothing else, it would need to have some information so somebody else can send you an image of a cat.
      If they would hold no information, they would not be able to send you that image.

      So some information is needed and that means registration and that means for humans under the age of 16 that they need to appoint a guardian.
      Well, at least they can celebrate their access to WatsApp with a beer when they turn 16, so that is nice.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    13. Re:Well, That will stop kids from clicking im 16+! by mjwx · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is stupid, I have been on the internet since i was a kid. I cant tell you how many times I said i was 13 when I was under.. And even more saying I was 18 when I was nowhere close. I am by no means advocating for having to give ID and prove someone is a certain age, I however this these kinds of laws are bullshit and everyone knows what really happens.

      Like any age gate, enforcing the age restriction isn't important, it's about making an effort to say "we put in an age gate, we've complied with the law". Likewise, the law requiring an age gate is arse covering for the politicians so they can say "we've made all these sites put in an age gate... we're doing Something(TM), re-elect Shonkey McShonkface for governor" and the "think of the Children" crowd get a warm fuzzy feeling about all the children they're protecting.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    14. Re:Well, That will stop kids from clicking im 16+! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's the difference between kids buying liquor or cigarettes and actively marketing to them. The new European legislation says kids can't give informed consent for a 3rd party to handle their private data, and so they need parental consent. Sounds about right. At the minimum the kid might think twice about why singing up for an online service requires authorization, and why handing out private information is somehow "bad".

    15. Re:Well, That will stop kids from clicking im 16+! by PPH · · Score: 1

      WhatsApp runs on mobile platforms. And it depends on you having a mobile phone number, so they can figure out who you are. They might not be able to read your messages. But if they link a device to a person under 16, that's all they need to know to drop you.

      At one point, someone wrote an unauthorized port of WhatsApp. They detected it and blocked those users. So they can find you and stop you if so motivated. Since they are releasing enterprise tools for the app, they can easily be pressured to conform to rules and regulations of jurisdictions they want to do business in.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    16. Re:Well, That will stop kids from clicking im 16+! by fish_in_the_c · · Score: 1

      also, if the kids parent comes in and says he wasn't allowed to buy the candy , the store probably is required by law to take it back ( although they could probably keep the money as damages). The point being ANY transaction with a minor is very much and the merchants own risk because a minor DOES NOT have legal control of themselves or any of their property. So unless they see mom and dad are their and see them hand the kid the money there is probably a risk. It gets even dicier if a 10+ year old is sent to the corner store with mom's pin to pick something up ( as happens all the time). Mom / Dad can easily show up at the store and say the kid didn't have permission and expect visa etc to act like they would with any other (unauthorized transaction) of coarse the catch is their kid may wind up charged with theft in juvenile court if they do.

      --
      âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
    17. Re:Well, That will stop kids from clicking im 16+! by nospam007 · · Score: 1

      "You can not enter a contract with a minor as a business "

      Sure you can, groceries, the ice-creme-man and other shops do it all the time.

      You cannot _enforce_ the contract when the parents object to the purchase.

    18. Re:Well, That will stop kids from clicking im 16+! by Highdude702 · · Score: 1

      Buying a candy bar is not a contract.

    19. Re:Well, That will stop kids from clicking im 16+! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Plenty of ways around this? How about lying about your age when you setup an account? Need parents approval? Make up some. There is no practical way to enforce any of this non-sense. The EU just loves churning out this type of nonsense since they are totally incapable of handling any important problems. Just like all those UN resolutions and International laws that also have no enforcement mechanisms. Although in this case the underage children lie about their age while the targets of UN resolutions and International laws lie about building nuclear weapons.

      It is not Facebook's, WhatsApp, or any other social media platforms responsibility to play nanny for the behavior of children. That is the parents responsibility and if they don't care why should anyone else?

      Why won't everyone just give up and follow my right-wing agenda? Because you're a cunt and they're not.

  3. Lawless without accountability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Pretty much sums up most social media companies.

    They need not only start enforcing proper laws and regulation on Facebook and it's many siblings but they should start with "telecommunications" industry laws such as ISO and go further by creating its own DSS similar to PCI. Further, violations of said standard should result in significant financial and in some cases criminal penalties. Because frankly, the data these companies house is far more valuable and damaging then a bunch of stupid credit card numbers*, which every time i build a freaking platform that needs to store credit card numbers i need to answer a 300 question SAQ, or pay bucket loads to a QSA.

    Think of it this way. Question #1 "Do you share your data with 3rd parties?" If yes, then instant fail of the test, you get my drift? In short stop letting Mark Dickwad Zuckerberg from doing shit that none of us are allowed to do in the first place.

    I say this not because I feel these companies will "one day" be compromised, but rather, I believe they already have been and we just don't know about it.

    * Steal my creditcard, who cares. Steal a conversation to my mistress and then have it dumped on the Internet for the world to see, life damaging.

    1. Re:Lawless without accountability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We need more laws and regulations like a fish needs a bicycle. Want to ease your fears regarding your online data? Read the fine print regarding the terms and conditions before posting your data. If you do not agree with the terms and conditions of use do not use the platform services. It is that simple. If enough people followed this simple rule it would force Facebook and any of the other social media companies to improve their data security and privacy protections to retain their user base.

    2. Re:Lawless without accountability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And when they breach their contract..STOP USING THE DAMN F- R- E- E SERVICE.
      Whiney SJW. Ruining the internet for everyone.

  4. Empty gesture by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Raising the age of consent in the single place that demands it is an empty gesture when 1) it wasn't done preemptively in a voluntarily fashion 2) you're leaving it alone worldwide in the name of cashflow.

    1. Re: Empty gesture by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So you're saying that users in China should be forced to adhere to the EU laws? And if so, then why isn't the EU following US laws, or Russian laws?

  5. WhatsApp Raises Minimum Age In Europe To 16 by Snufu · · Score: 0

    That's some serious spacetime manipulation IP they got there.

  6. Alternatively... by clickety6 · · Score: 1

    ...they could just stop collecting so much data in Whatsapp. I wonder how many of its users are actually under-16? My kids and lots of their school friends use it for school work as well as personal contact. Most of them don't have Facebook accounts. Seems like a bad decision to kick your future user-base out of your ecosystem.

    --
    ----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
    1. Re:Alternatively... by ledow · · Score: 1

      It has nothing to do with them collecting "so much data".

      Literally, if you store somebody's name, you come under GDPR legislation.

      GDPR is a huge change / consolidation of existing case law in data protection and has massive implications for EVERYONE. Fact is, a 13-year-old could never consent to their personal data being used anyway - only if someone did it on their behalf. It was just assumed that nobody would bother.

      (For instance, in the UK, age of "legal consent" for contracts is 16 - gosh where have I seen that number before - but age of criminal responsibility can be as low as 10. But you're not committing a crime by breaking an end user licence agreement, it's a civil act).

      GDPR is a kick-up-the-arse to all the places that made assumptions, hoped nobody would notice, or which didn't think they were required to do things like keep my details secret. Any details. All details. Every detail. Data Protection Act has been quite clear, but people assumed things about it that case-law has never supported.

      Encode the established case-law into codified law and you get GDPR. Which says that no child can give a company legal permission to disseminate their phone number, photographs or age without explicit consent (and parental consent).

      I work IT in a school when the kids are as young as 5. Imagine the shite that I now have to deal with.

    2. Re:Alternatively... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Other than auditing your processes (which you ought to have done under for the exsting legislation) very little, anything more is a conflict of interest!

    3. Re:Alternatively... by ledow · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry, what?

      Conflict of interest has nothing to do with it.

      And the existing legislation (Data Protection Act) specifically did not cover:

      - Anything non-electronically stored.
      - Anything with implied or general consent (i.e. a parent signing "you may store records on our child" without us having to list every god-damn thing we store down to the letter... now we require "explicit" and "specific" consent for everything)
      - Destruction of data upon request.

      That's three entire processes running into THOUSANDS of records over decades of children, right down to digging through the paper archives.

      Not to mention the million-and-one exceptions that are no longer, uses that aren't valid without explicit consent, differentiation in handling and consent between "very private" and just personal data, and extreme amounts of "this is the data we hold, please verify it's correct AND renew our permission to keep it", which wasn't required except on demand.

      GDPR is a whole different ball game to anything that came before it.

      With personal liability if it goes to court.

      Which means, yes, you can get a teacher convicted and fined because they took a class register home with just a list of names and lost it. Personally. As well as the business that "allowed" that to happen.

      P.S. How many people work in a school that require access to such data for their jobs, but which come under GDPR? All of them. Meaning whole-staff training. Whole-staff education. Whole-staff monitoring. Whole-staff sanctioning. And whole-staff co-operating when a data request come in.

      It's not just "Ah, look, they've changed the law slightly." GDPR is serious. It's stopped ICANN in its tracks with regards its WHOIS database (despite being in the US!). It's playing havoc with every cloud and service provider. And it's literally every other line in my LinkedIn feed - from articles, seminars, lawyers, training, professionals making queries, etc.

      Hey. Did you know? We can't even email former pupils now. Not without their explicit consent. And... how do you get their explicit consent? Guess what? You can't send them an email to ask. Goodbye alumni services for this generation, maybe next year's kids will have to sign an explicit form on entry/exit which specifically mentions use for alumni purposes, and we'll be allowed to retain those records for more than the statutory period.

      Literally, job agencies, sales companies, anyone who deals in email at all. They can't legally send a first-message without explicit consent. And that message can't even be to seek consent. Technically, it should mean the death of spam. What it means realistically is that cold-calling is dead in the water and some companies won't be able to generate sales at all.

      Still sound like "just audit your processes"?

  7. Kids won't click on WhatsApp's button by DrYak · · Score: 1

    No, kid under age will not actually click the "16+" button on WhatsApp's authorisation page...

    ...for the simple reason that they don't use WhatsApp.
    They tend to hang out on SnapChat.

    (Which is the reason why the Zuck is nervous about them : there the only successful social app that he didn't manage to buy like WhatsApp, Instagram, etc.)

    --
    "Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
  8. Locking out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My kids are interested in computers, but they can't do much.

    Most sites require you to be 13 to do anything, my kids shouldn't even have their own steam account.

    All this "protection" means that kids either
    1. Can't have access to any technology.
    2. Have to start lying at a very early age.

    Great choice society.

  9. No way to actually do this. by fish_in_the_c · · Score: 1

    I mean , how do you remotely verify age. take a selfie and picture of your drivers license. I guess that would be a start, that would at least prove there was someone with a drivers license, your registered name and that looks something like you ( assuming you could access DMV records) . Still talk about a privacy nightmare. Maybe some kind of third party verifier would be better.

    --
    âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
    1. Re:No way to actually do this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Take a picture of the user's junk and count the wrinkles.

  10. Leasure Suit Larry - Far out man... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Far out man - this will totally work:
    http://www.classicgaming.cc/pc/leisure-suit-larry/age-quiz

  11. There's no age of consent in GDPR. by jaseuk · · Score: 1

    UK is adopting 13 as age of consent in Data Protection Bill.

    I think this is just WhatsApp not wanting to deal with underage issues - e.g. bullying / adult content. This has absolutely nothing to do with Data Protection.