As governments across the world move to restrict minors’ access to social media, messaging platform WhatsApp has introduced a new feature allowing parents to supervise accounts used by younger users.

The feature, called parent-managed accounts, is designed for children under 13 and allows a parent or guardian to create and link the child’s account to their own WhatsApp profile. The move comes amid growing regulatory pressure on technology platforms to improve protections for children online.  

Under the new system, parents can control who is allowed to contact their child, approve group invitations, and manage privacy settings such as profile visibility. Parents can also review message requests from unknown numbers and restrict certain interactions. However, the content of messages remains private due to WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption, meaning even parents cannot read chats directly.  

The company says the feature was developed after feedback from families and safety experts seeking a more controlled messaging environment for younger users. Parent-managed accounts are also designed to limit the platform experience primarily to messaging and calling, rather than offering the full set of features available to adult users.  

What the parent-managed accounts allow

Under the new system, a child’s WhatsApp account must be set up and linked to a parent or guardian’s account. The parent effectively acts as the supervising account and manages key safety settings from their own device.

A central feature is contact approval. If someone outside the child’s contacts tries to start a conversation, the request is routed to the parent, who can decide whether the interaction should be allowed. Parents can also manage the child’s contact list and block numbers they do not recognise.

The feature also places limits on group participation. When a child is invited to join a group chat, the request requires parental approval before the child can enter the group. This is meant to reduce the likelihood of children being added to large groups or conversations involving unfamiliar users.

Parents can also adjust several privacy settings, including who can see the child’s profile photo, last-seen status and online activity. These settings are protected by a parent PIN, which prevents the child from changing them independently.

Another safeguard applies to messages from unknown numbers. Requests from numbers not saved in the child’s contacts can be screened or blocked by the parent before the conversation begins.

While parents can control these access points, they cannot read the messages themselves. WhatsApp says conversations on these accounts remain protected by end-to-end encryption, meaning the content of messages is visible only to the people participating in the chat.

A global push to regulate children’s digital access

WhatsApp’s move comes at a time when governments are increasingly intervening in how young people use digital platforms.

In December 2025, Australia became the first country to introduce a nationwide ban preventing children under 16 from accessing major social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube unless strict age-verification rules are met, and if failing to comply, they would face significant penalties.  

Other countries are considering similar restrictions, with France, Spain and Denmark debating bans or strict age limits on social media use by minors, while several governments are exploring systems requiring parental consent or digital age verification before teenagers can create accounts.  

In Southeast Asia, Indonesia has also announced plans to ban social media use for children under 16, citing concerns over cyberbullying, harmful content and digital addiction.  

While India is yet to announce such measures, Karnataka was the first state to ban social media for children under the age of 16. "With the objective of preventing adverse effects of increasing mobile usage on children, usage of social media will be banned for children under the age of 16," state Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who uses only one name, said in his annual budget speech, while not giving a date of enforcement.