As the UAE bans social media for children under 15, WhatsApp has introduced new features that give parents firmer control over their teenagers' online footprints.
Parents will not be able to read the messages their teenagers send or receive. The new features are meant to help parents and teenagers build safer online habits together, offering oversight of potential risks without constant monitoring.
WhatsApp says the tools are flexible and can be adjusted or disabled as family needs evolve. Parents can use a six-digit Parent PIN to lock specific privacy settings on a teenager's account. If a teenager tries to change certain restrictions, such as who can view their profile picture, Last Seen status, or add them to groups, they need parental approval.
The controls also provide notifications to keep parents informed of changes in their teenager's online activity. Parents receive alerts when their teenager joins or leaves a group, when a group grows significantly, or when a new contact is added.
Parents can set who can view their teenager's status updates, whose status updates the teen can access, and how the teen discovers or follows public WhatsApp channels.
The update also includes artificial intelligence features. Parents can select either the default 13+ Meta AI experience or a stricter Limited Content option that restricts sensitive topics and adds safeguards. The stricter mode disables private or incognito AI interactions.
These controls do not grant parents access to personal messages or calls. End-to-end encryption ensures these remain protected.
Balancing oversight with privacy
These controls prompt important questions. How can technology companies protect young users without limiting their independence? Parents need tools to identify risks, while teenagers require opportunities to develop judgment, build trust and learn digital responsibility.
Andreas Hassellof, founder and chief executive of technology company Ombori, believes WhatsApp is moving towards a useful balance between parental visibility and personal privacy.
“Good digital safety should create visibility without turning childhood into surveillance,” he said.
Mr Hassellof said parents should have access to indicators of potentially concerning activity without monitoring every aspect of their teenager's digital life. For example, changes in group membership can prompt parents to check in with their child without needing access to group messages.
He added that effective digital safety required both protection and the gradual development of judgment. Platforms face the challenge of giving parents meaningful ways to intervene while letting teenagers build confidence and responsibility in managing their online interactions.
Mili Mehta, a Dubai resident and parent of a 15-year-old, welcomed the initiative.
“As a parent, I think the parental code is a great initiative. It gives parents greater control over their teen's privacy settings and offers an added layer of safety,” she said.
However, Ms Mehta noted that her teenager used WhatsApp less frequently than other platforms. She believes parental controls should extend to the services young people use most, such as Snapchat and Instagram, while respecting their need for independence and privacy.
Her concern highlights a limitation of platform-specific safety measures: effective controls on one service cannot address all risks teenagers may face on other platforms.
Jenita Clara, a UAE resident and mother of a 13-year-old, also supports the new controls, particularly the Parent PIN and notifications that can help parents identify potential risks early.
Ms Clara described an incident where her child was added to a group by someone he barely knew, exposing him to inappropriate videos and language before she became aware. She said this experience showed how easily children can encounter unsuitable content and how hard it can be to leave a group or speak up when pressured.
For Ms Clara, parental controls are not about distrust; they are an added safeguard. She believes restrictions on who can add children to groups helps parents to intervene earlier and create opportunities to discuss appropriate online behaviour.
Her experience shows why privacy settings and group-related alerts matter, even when parents cannot access the conversations themselves.
Should parental controls be on by default?
WhatsApp's controls are optional and disabled by default, allowing families to choose whether to activate them. This raises a broader debate about whether platforms should automatically enable age-appropriate safety features for users under 18 or allow families to opt in.
Mr Hassellof said platforms should make their strongest age-appropriate protections easy to activate, while allowing families flexibility in choosing the level of oversight they find appropriate.
“Safety by design should become the default thinking, even when every control does not need to be switched on by default,” he said.
He noted that teenagers vary in maturity and independence. A 13-year-old may require more support than a 17-year-old, so a single set of controls may not suit every family or stage of development.
Platforms can make protective settings prominent, clearly explain their benefits, and offer simple ways to configure them, without assuming every teenager requires the same level of supervision.
An opt-in approach allows families to discuss expectations and set boundaries together, but it also places greater responsibility on parents to understand available controls and decide when to use them.
The broader challenge for technology companies is to make safer choices accessible without making digital independence an all-or-nothing decision.
Age-based AI filters are only first step
As artificial intelligence becomes part of everyday digital services, ensuring young people's safety remains a challenge for parents.
Mr Hasselof said age-based filters offer an important first layer of protection, but they cannot address all risks associated with AI interactions.
“The next generation of AI safety will be measured by how well systems understand context, not simply how well they recognise age,” he said.
A teenager asking an ordinary question and one seeking help with a sensitive or distressing issue may be the same age, but the appropriate AI response could differ greatly.
Mr Hassellof also noted that young users might struggle to distinguish factual information from inference or confidently delivered but inaccurate AI-generated answers.
He believes age-appropriate behaviour should be integrated into AI products from the outset.
Mr Hassellof expects WhatsApp's announcement to raise standards across messaging and social media, as parents increasingly seek consistent protection across the services their children use.
“Once safety becomes part of the user experience, it becomes part of the platform's baseline,” he said.
