WhatsApp has dropped the minimum age for its messaging service from 16 to 13 in the UK and mainland Europe. It follows a similar shift in other countries, including Australia and the USA. Meta, the parent company that owns WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram, says it made the change to “ensure a consistent minimum age requirement for WhatsApp globally”. Although the minimum age for WhatsApp was listed as 16+ on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in the UK, the system relied entirely on honesty. Meta didn’t have any checks to enforce its age restriction limit during the set-up process, whi…
