It seems that in order to comply with new regulations being introduced in Europe, a report from Sky News has revealed that one of the changes that WhatsApp will be making is a new requirement for its users to be at least 16 before using their app. Prior to this and for the most part with regards to online services, it requires users to be at least 13 years old.
However these changes mean that WhatsApp (and presumably other companies) will now need to raise the bar to 16. Now in the past it was easy for users under a certain age to access websites and content meant for an older crowd just by clicking, “Yes I am over 18”, so it is unclear as to how WhatsApp will require users to verify their age.
The confusion only grows as WhatsApp claims that they will not be asking for any new rights to collect personal information in the agreement, which means that verification of a user’s age might simply be to ask if they are at least 16 or older without any hard proof required. Alternatively it could be that WhatsApp could do what Facebook does for its younger users, where Facebook will require users to nominate a parent/guardian to give permission for them to share information on the platform.