WhatsApp, parent-managed accounts for pre-teens arrive

Meta's messaging platform introduces parent-managed accounts, a new mode designed for pre-teens. The idea is simple: allow kids to use WhatsApp but with a control room in the hands of adults.

Technically speaking, it is an answer to an increasingly widespread demand. The first smartphone now arrives between the ages of 11 and 13. And the first app installed is almost always WhatsApp. Usually around that age the phone when given (the writer is convinced that the later a smartphone arrives in the hands of a minor the better) the devices are given for important reasons and in any case with the possibility of controlling what goes on in there. All this for obvious reasons related to digital and other security. There are also those who use sophisticated parental control systems on video content.

One premise: WhatsApp is not a social network. It is a network of private conversations. No followers, no feeds, no algorithms suggesting content. Just phone numbers and chats. However, no one can exclude the possibility of private groups, class groups or other.

That is why it has become a kind of digital home infrastructure. The 'I have arrived' message. The class parents' group. The school play photo. Every day billions of conversations pass through here and all are protected by end-to-end encryption, a system that makes messages readable only by the sender and the receiver, even from the same platform.

What is new is the arrival of a real family administrator. The parent becomes the supervisor of the child's account. The set-up requires two phones placed on the table: the child's and the adult's. During registration, the two accounts are linked and from then on, the parent can control various aspects of the child's digital experience. He or she can determine who is authorised to contact him or her, check for message requests from unknown persons, decide which groups he or she can join and change all the main privacy settings.