Johannesburg – WhatsApp is rolling out new parental controls in South Africa that will give parents greater oversight of how their children use the messaging platform, including who they can contact, which groups they can join and some features they can access.
According to BusinessTech, the new controls allow parents to set privacy settings for their children, receive notifications about changes to groups and decide how children interact with Meta AI, Channels and Status.
Parents can also require their approval before certain privacy settings are changed. WhatsApp said the controls are intended to improve safety while preserving the privacy of children’s personal conversations.
“All of these controls are being designed to support open conversations about how to use WhatsApp between parents and teens, while keeping everyone’s personal messages private,” WhatsApp said.
The company stressed that parental oversight does not give parents access to their children’s private messages or calls, which remain protected by end-to-end encryption.
The changes build on WhatsApp’s parent-managed accounts, introduced earlier this year. According to WhatsApp, these accounts allow parents or guardians to set up WhatsApp for pre-teens, control who can contact them and decide which groups they can join.
Parents can also review message requests from unknown contacts, while the controls are protected by a parent-set PIN.
Technology publication TechCrunch reported when the parent-linked accounts were launched that pre-teen accounts would be limited to messaging and calling and would not be targeted with advertisements.
WhatsApp’s safety information also states that parents can view certain account-level activity, such as updates involving groups, without seeing the content of private conversations.
The latest changes come as governments and technology companies face growing pressure to strengthen protections for children online.
BusinessTech reported that Australia has already introduced restrictions preventing children under 16 from accessing social media unless platforms can verify their age. South Africa, however, is not currently pursuing a similar blanket ban.
Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Solly Malatsi said there was “currently no irrefutable indication” that a general social media ban for under-16s would prevent young people from being active on such platforms.
WhatsApp said its parental controls are optional and that parents can decide how much oversight is appropriate for their children.
The company has described the changes as part of a broader effort to provide families with tools that offer greater supervision without compromising private communications.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
