WhatsApp ban for under-sixteens: a measure that will prove hard to apply

As of this May, children under the age of sixteen will no longer be able to use WhatsApp to chat. The WhatsApp instant messaging application has announced that it is to update its terms of service and privacy policy as a result of the new European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) due to come into force on 25 May. This update includes raising the minimum age limit for service use in the European Union, from thirteen to sixteen. As things stand, the use of WhatsApp by under-sixteens could create legal problems for the company. The company has not yet specified how this measure will be enforced in terms of verifying that users genuinely meet the stipulated age limit, but some experts have already begun expressing doubts.

UOC Faculty of Law and Political Science professor Mònica Vilasau believes the measure will be “difficult to apply”, since it is very hard to establish mechanisms that make it possible to ascertain the age of a person with any degree of certainty. “Clearly anyone under the age of sixteen has the option of calling on someone older to help them get around it, or, as digital natives, they can go online and look up strategies for registering as users”, she explains.

Mireia Montaña, professor at the UOC Faculty of Information and Communication Sciences, agrees, pointing out that this measure is purely a move by WhatsApp to “cover its back” in light of the new data protection law. “If the only control they introduce is asking users how old they are, it will not work: children and young people will lie so that they can continue using the application”, she points out.

Vilasau also describes the measure as inadequate, given the fact that it fails to safeguard the rights of minors on the internet. “It is only possible to protect children's rights on the internet if they do not use mobiles, do not publish any content on the internet and are not registered on any social media network”, she says. However, the expert points out that this is sadly not possible in a society as digitized as the one that currently exists, in which minors have grown up with new technologies.

Education in the use of new technologies

Montaña also points out that this measure will only make minors “more determined to use the application”. The experts both agree that the most effective course of action would be to educate children on the use of this type of application and on new technologies through teaching at school and parental guidance at home. “Rather than banning an application, the key is to educate children and young people on how to use it correctly, at the same time as controlling the amount of time spent on this type of platform”, Montaña stresses.

“The measure adopted by WhatsApp could serve to make the parents of minors more aware of the implications resulting from regular and constant use of mobile applications and social media networks by children, which may in turn prompt them to monitor their children’s use more closely”, says Vilasau.

Montaña recommends using parental control tools to monitor children’s use of this type of application. “We need to inform young people and children about how these applications should be used, know how to identify potential cases of misuse and harassment, and make them see that reality is not as idyllic as many posts on social media would have us believe”, she concludes.