In order to help parents best protect their children’s communications, WhatsApp will soon have a parental control system. Via a secondary account, they will be able to choose who their offspring chats with.
WhatsApp has become an essential messaging service for communicating with loved ones. Very quickly, the youngest also feel the need to connect and be able to speak with their friends and other family members in complete autonomy. But digital technology has its share of dangers, whether through scams or malicious contacts. Also, Meta decided to provide a solution to this problem.
As the specialized site WABetaInfo discovered in beta version 2.26.1.30 of the Android application, Mark Zuckerberg’s company is working on a parental control system to better protect minors who use its instant messaging. Simply called a “secondary account”, this is a type of profile designed to be linked to a primary account, usually that of a parent or legal guardian. The two accounts remain separate, but the link creates a supervision relationship: the holder of the main account will be able to configure and restrict certain parameters of the secondary account. The objective is to give parents the means to better supervise their children’s use of WhatsApp while respecting their privacy. Perfect for letting young ones interact with family members and a few trusted friends while preserving their safety!
WhatsApp secondary account: voluntarily restricted functions
The functions of the minor’s secondary account will be voluntarily limited, and it will be up to the parent to adjust the confidentiality settings. Thus, the young person will only be able to communicate with contacts already saved in their list. This means that messages and calls from strangers, which can sometimes be intrusive or dangerous, will be blocked by default. It will be up to the main account – therefore the parent – to designate who can send messages or make calls to the secondary account. A way to avoid unsolicited interactions and spam.
In the same way, a secondary account could only be added to groups appearing in its contacts, which makes it possible to avoid a good number of scams (phishing, sexual propositions, cryptocurrency advice, etc.). Finally, the parent will also be able to control options relating to the visibility of the profile in order to preserve the privacy and personal information of their child.
Speaking of privacy, the parent will not be able to access the content of conversations in the secondary account. Messages and calls will remain protected by end-to-end encryption, a core feature of the app for years. This means that even if a parent supervises the settings and authorized contacts, they will not be able to read private messages exchanged by the child.
For the moment, the terms of creation of the secondary account and its association with the main account remain unknown. The function is still under development, it is entirely possible that it could further evolve between now and its global deployment.
