According to the new European measure for data protection WhatsApp could become “illegal” for minors under 16, but doubts remain about the law
Designed to ensure greater privacy and greater protection for user data, the GDPR (acronym of General Data Protection Regulation) could reserve unwelcome surprises for subscribers to social and communication platforms of all kinds.
According to some rumors reported by the portal WABetaInfo (usually very well informed about news concerning the instant messaging platform), WhatsApp could be banned to all children under 16 years. In view of the entry into force of the GDPR (scheduled for next May 25, 2018), the platform would be updating its usage policy, introducing innovations that would prevent (at least on paper) the under 16 to create accounts and exchange messages with their friends or parents. This measure would be necessary to comply with the provisions of art. 8 of the GDPR, which establishes the threshold of 16 years for “the direct offer of information society services to minors”.
WhatsApp forbidden to minors under 16, what’s true
Not everyone thinks the same way as WABetaInfo. According to an “extensive” interpretation of Article 8 of the European regulation, the age rule could be circumvented if the child uses the service under the strict supervision of a parent. This is a loophole that several services could use to avoid measures that are too stringent and thus lose slices of users. As has already happened in the past, in fact, WhatsApp and other services could “nominally” raise the registration threshold from 13 to 16 years old, without putting in place adequate control measures.
The rule of the European regulation, then,
could create problems for what concerns already active users. How should WhatsApp (and all the other companies that provide similar services) behave with boys and girls under 16 who are already registered on the platform? A nice headache that could find a solution in the extensive interpretation just described.
A method, by the way, already tested by Facebook. The social network of Mark Zuckerberg (owner, among other things, of WhatsApp) has already updated its policy, prohibiting the use of some features of the social platform for all members under 16. Unless, Facebook specifies, they are strictly controlled by their parents(or do so with their permission). In short, an imaginative, but very correct, way to interpret the European norm.
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