A guide for families with key information about ‘WhatsApp’, including the age rating, key terminology, risks and instructions for enabling parental controls and safety settings.
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WhatsApp is a free instant messaging app with up to 2 billion active monthly users worldwide. Using an internet connection, the app allows users to send messages to contacts added to their WhatsApp account either individually or in group chats. Users must verify their account with a standard mobile phone number to start using the app. There are no parental controls available through the app, but there are a range of privacy settings that users can change to help control who they contact and what information is shared.
WhatsApp now sits alongside Instagram, Facebook and Messenger under the parent company Meta. Meta replaces Facebook as the leading company/brand in this group, and the Meta branding is likely to become increasingly visible on all of these apps.
Official age rating
The minimum age restriction for WhatsApp users is 16, however it does not have any rigorous age verification methods.
WhatsApp is rated 12+ on the Apple App Store, and ‘E’ for ‘Everyone’ on Google Play.
Find out more about age ratings in our ‘A parent and carer’s guide to age ratings of apps and games’.
How children and young people use the app
WhatsApp is a messaging app for those looking for convenience as well as enhanced privacy and security. It is especially convenient for users to connect with friends as it syncs to your phone contacts and connects you to their WhatsApp profiles. The app is incredibly user friendly and the ability to set up individual and group chats is appealing for teens. WhatsApp groups are extremely popular with young people, especially within school communities for year groups, classes and individual friendship groups. However, some young people feel that lots of bullying occurs on the platform within larger group chats, with participants sharing personal content and screen shots of other conversations.
Key features and terminology
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This allows users to share text, photos, links and video updates with their contacts that disappears after 24 hours. To send and receive status updates, users need their contact’s number saved in their phone. Users can choose who views their status each time it’s updated. The most recent audience selection will be saved and used as the default for the next update.
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The main feature of WhatsApp is the ability to have individual or group chats with contacts saved in your phone.
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A chat lock or locked chat is a chat that is hidden and kept secret, as chat notifications will not show details of the chat and is additionally only accessible with a biometric or password.
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This is the user who sets up a group chat. This is the only user who can add or remove participants and change or add additional group administrators. Individual users can leave a group without needing the ‘Group admin’ to intervene.
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Providing you have an internet connection, users can call a contact on WhatsApp. This can be either an audio or video call with an individual or groups of up to 8 people.
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WhatsApp allows users to share photos and videos with their contacts. This can be either through access to the camera or by sharing photos and videos from the camera roll on the phone.
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Instead of sending text messages, users can record voice messages by holding down the microphone icon in the chat function.
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This term refers to the small cartoon faces with various expressions users can send to each other. The list of Emoji options now includes people, buildings, animals, foods, symbols and more.
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As well as sending text and emojis, users can also send Gifs to their contacts. A Gif is an animated image without sound.
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This allows users to send an image, video, or voice message to be seen once. Once viewed it is automatically deleted from both devices. Screenshot blocking for ‘View once’ messages is enabled to stop other users from forwarding on the content of these private messages.
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The blue double tick that appears next to a message once the recipient has read it.
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This tells other users the last time you used WhatsApp or if you’re online.
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Users can create polls about a topic in a group chat. Individual users may select answers to this poll, for example, in a poll about which day works best for dinner for the group.
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Users can send video messages up to 60 seconds by tapping the microphone icon in the chat icon to switch to video, and then holding down the video icon.
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Users can share their live locations with a contact or group of their choice.
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This is an optional feature that allows you to set messages to disappear 24 hours, 7 days, or 90 days after sending. This setting can be applied to all chats or selected ones. It is important to remember that messages can still be saved, screenshotted, or forwarded before they disappear.
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This feature allows users to password-protect conversations. It adds an additional layer of protection to your private conversations and makes it harder for someone with access to your phone to find them.
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This refers to preventing any third party from viewing or reading a message. Only the sender and receiver of the message can access its content. End to end encryption means that the message is encrypted before it leaves the senders device and can only be decrypted once it reaches its destination. This means that data on a server cannot be accessed by hackers because the data is encrypted. This feature is applied by default to all messages.
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A broadcast feature where a chat is set up and may only be posted into by the admin account. Other members of the chat can react to posts and forward them to other chats but cannot post into the channel themselves.
Potential risks
Content
Like other messaging apps, a lot of personal stories, messages and pictures are shared by users on WhatsApp - these are not moderated. Users can also quickly send 60-second video messages with the ease of sending a voice message. Like text messages, the content in a video message is unmoderated which means your child may be exposed to inappropriate content depending on who sends a video message. The best way to manage the content your child is exposed to is to ensure they are only connecting with people they know, rather than strangers. Ensure the privacy settings have been set to ‘My contacts only’, rather than ‘Everyone’. It is also possible your child may stumble across inappropriate content in the form of bad language or mature content in their messages. By restricting who your child can access on the platform, your child is less likely to experience language or behaviour that is not suitable for their age. However, it should be acknowledged that your child may still be exposed to inappropriate content by their known contacts.
Connecting with others
As WhatsApp has an age restriction of 16, it does not include any real parental control settings. Like many other social media apps, some children sign up to WhatsApp when they are under the suggested age limit. This is a risk as WhatsApp defaults to ‘Everyone’ on many of its privacy features, which means all users on the platform can view personal information, chat and share images without any filters in place. Speak to your child about the risks of connecting with strangers and explain the importance of not sharing any personal or identifiable information on their profile or within chats. Remind them to tell you if they have been asked more personal questions or to chat privately in a way that makes them feel uncomfortable. Changing the privacy settings to sharing only with ‘My contacts’ is recommended. It is recommended that younger users should also change their group privacy settings to ‘My contacts’, to avoid unknown contacts from adding them to group chats.
It is possible that WhatsApp’s ‘Chat Lock’ or ‘Secret code’ feature could be used by a contact your child knows to share inappropriate content or potentially engage in online grooming through a means that prevents parents or anyone with access to the child’s phone from discovering the conversation. If your child is using a chat lock, or you feel they may be using a ‘secret code’, you should speak with your child. Explain why you may want to check in on who they are chatting with for their own safety, rather than to invade their privacy.
Users should also be aware of the potential of online bullying to take place within WhatsApp groups. Users should note that the ‘Polls’ feature could be used to bully other users. Polls are user-generated, meaning users write in their own questions and answers. This could result in polls that ask a question about a user in the group chat, and only allow users to select a mean response option. As this can be confusing or distressing to your child, it is recommended that you ensure your child knows they can speak to you about what they see on WhatsApp and know the importance of blocking and reporting anyone that causes them distress.
Users may find location sharing useful for a range of functions, such as letting their friends or family know where they are currently located. However, users should be wary of sharing their live location with someone they do not fully know or trust. It is recommended that these settings are disabled for younger users, guidance of which is provided in the ‘Managing privacy’ section of this guide.
User behaviour
If your child has their own WhatsApp account, it is important for you and them to be aware of what they share and the impact this will have on their digital footprint. Ensure your child knows it can be difficult to keep ownership of any content once it has been shared online, as content can easily be copied and reposted without their knowledge and can then become difficult to remove from the internet.
The ‘View once’ feature on WhatsApp could pose a risk to some users. This feature may be conducive of bullying behaviours, with some users feeling they are not culpable if the message can’t be viewed again. Screenshot blocks of ‘View once’ messages are enabled to try and reduce this type of bullying behaviour on platform. Whilst these safety settings are in place to protect users, you should remind your child to think carefully about the type of content they choose to share.
Design, data and costs
One of the features of WhatsApp is its use of end-to-end encryption. This means that only those with access to the phones of the sender and receiver of a message can access them - not even WhatsApp itself can gain access to messages. Whilst this is an attractive security feature for many adults, it has caused problems for law enforcement when trying to access the message records of victims and suspects involved in child exploitation cases. Changing the privacy settings to sharing only with ‘My Contacts’ is once again recommended.
WhatsApp users should be aware of how ‘Read receipts’ and ‘Last seen’ are designed to keep users on the platform for as long as possible. Now users can select who can see when they are online, which can help to manage the time spent on the platform. Speak to your child about how platforms are designed to be compulsive in this way and encourage them to disable these features to give them a break from constant messaging.
Tips for keeping your child safe
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All accounts default to a setting where any WhatsApp user can see your ‘Read receipts’, ‘Last seen’, ‘About’ and profile photo. WhatsApp gives users the option to choose who they share their information with by selecting one of the following options: ‘Everyone’, ‘My contacts’, ‘My contacts except’ and ‘Nobody’. The app also requires background location for the ‘Live location’ feature, which can be managed on your phone’s settings.
To set privacy settings:
- open the app and choose ‘Settings’ at the bottom of the page
- select ‘Account’ and tap on ‘Privacy’
- to limit contact, work through the listed options and choose from either:
- my contacts
- nobody
- the changes will be applied immediately
To disable location settings:
- go to your device settings and scroll down to WhatsApp and select
- tap on ‘Location’ and select ‘Never’ from the listed options
- open WhatsApp and choose ‘Settings’ at the bottom of the page
- select ‘Account’ and tap on 'Privacy’
- check that the privacy option for ‘Live location' states ‘None’
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WhatsApp default settings means that users can be added to group chats by people outside of their phone contacts without permission. Default settings also means that all photos and videos you receive are automatically saved to your camera roll.
To change group chat settings:
- open the app and select ‘Settings’ at the bottom of the page
- select ‘Account’ and tap on ‘Privacy’
- tap on ‘Groups’and select ‘My contacts’
- group admins who can’t add you to a group will have the option of inviting you privately instead
To leave a group:
- go to the group you want to leave either by searching or scrolling through your chat list
- tap on the group name at the top of the page
- scroll down and tap on ‘Exit group’
To change photo and video preferences:
- open the app and select ‘Settings’ at the bottom of the page
- select ‘Chats’ from the listed options
- toggle off the button next to ‘Save to camera roll’
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Users can report and block users who may be bothering them or behaving inappropriately on the platform.
To block a user:
- go to the user you want to block either by searching or scrolling through your chat list
- tap on their name at the top of the page
- scroll down through the options and select ‘Block contact’
Blocking will not remove the contact from WhatsApp. To delete a contact, you will need to delete the contact from your phone’s address book.
To report a user:
- go to the user you want to report either by searching or scrolling through your chat list
- tap on their name at the top of the page
- scroll down through the options and select ‘Report’
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To help limit the pressure for young people to be online and respond to messages straight away, WhatsApp has some settings to help manage usage. ‘Read receipts’ tell other users when you have read a message and ‘Last seen’ refers to the last time a contact used WhatsApp.
To turn off ‘Read receipts’:
- open the app and select ‘Settings’ at the bottom of the page
- select ‘Account’ and tap on ‘Privacy’
- scroll down to ‘Read receipts’ and toggle the button off
To turn off ‘Last seen’:
- open the app and select ‘Settings’ at the bottom of the page
- select ‘Account’ and tap on ‘Privacy’
- tap on the ‘Last seen’ option and select ‘Nobody’
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Users should note that it can take up to 90 days for a WhatsApp account to be completely deleted. Meta advises that though the deletion is a long process, it is irreversible and cannot be stopped when it begins. Users should also be aware that WhatsApp will automatically delete an account after 120 days of inactivity – meaning if the user has not connected or logged into WhatsApp for 120 days.
To delete a WhatsApp account (Android):
- select the three vertical dots in the top right corner
- select ‘Settings’
- choose ‘Account’
- choose the rubbish bin labelled ‘Delete my account’
- write in your phone number
- choose ‘DELETE MY ACCOUNT’
To delete a WhatsApp account (iOS):
- go to ‘Settings’
- choose ‘Delete my account’
- write in your phone number
- choose ‘DELETE MY ACCOUNT'
Additional tips
End-to-end encryption can make the app particularly appealing to those who wish to communicate securely. However, this feature could be used by adults who want to develop a relationship with a child to potentially harm or abuse them. Try to make sure your child is only using WhatsApp to communicate with other users that they know and trust.
WhatsApp have a designated safety space, where users can read about the platform’s suggested safety tips .