Millions Of British People Are Now Banned From Using WhatsApp, But There Is A Trick

Posted By Parveen

Millions of people have just been banned from using Whatsapp in the UK: Metro UK reports that until now the legal age to use WhatsApp was 13 years but the now the legal age to use the app has changed from 13 years to 16 years. After the introduction of latest strict European data privacy laws, users have to confirm that they are 16 years old and agree to new terms and privacy policy. You may also be receiving emails from weird websites for the change in their privacy policy and user agreement, all that is happening due to this new EU policy for better user data protection.

However, it may sound bad to many users for now but the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) brings more power to users. Since the GDPR came into force on May 25 the privacy policies are being changed by most of the biggest websites to fit with GDPR. Users are now in control of their data online, users have rights on how their data is being used and saved by websites. Also, WhatsApp is doing this as a trick with these new regulations.

There are still confusions on how this ban will come into effect in next few weeks. Will WhatsApp just kicks out users they doubt to be below 16 years age or they will ask for confirmation from users. Some users may want to bypass this ban, how will they try to bypass or avoid it? We have to wait for things to be clearer. Also, asking users to just confirm if they are 16 years old or not looks flimsy as it is not going to stop children from clicking “Yes” and using messaging app.

WhatsApp ban will be applicable to users below age 16

The GDPR has been the biggest overhaul of the internet since its birth and the new policy does make users the owner of their personal information and they can give access to sites as they see fit.

One of the biggest massaging platforms with 1.5 billion users in January 2018 said in a blog post:

‘Our goal is simply to explain how we use and protect the limited information we have about you.’

WhatsApp also said that under new privacy policy and user agreement they are not asking for any additional information. Other social platforms including Twitter and Facebook have also updated their policies. Especially WhatsApp was under pressure from European countries due to its plan to share more of user data with Facebook.

They had two options whether to limit their data collection on children under 16 and scrap their plans to collect more of user data or raise the lower limit to register and use their app. WhatsApp selected the easy way by raising the age limit because they knew, this will not stop users from accepting the 16 year age limit notice. Of course, it won’t be legal to pretend to be 16 years old on WhatsApp but it is apparent that the messaging platform is not going to enforce such rules except two statements mentioned on their policy:

Creating an account with false information is a violation of our Terms of Use

Registering an account on behalf of someone who is underage is also a violation of our Terms

Millions of British people are now banned from using Whatsapp

Do you support or hate this ban and latest GDPR policy implemented by the European governments, do share in the comment section below!

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