WhatsApp is introducing parental controls for teens, a set of optional tools that parents and teens set up together. Parents can lock privacy settings behind a PIN, get alerts about group activity, and choose how their teen uses Channels, Status, and Meta AI.
WhatsApp announced the controls and says parents want to guide their teens without reading over their shoulder, and that it plans to add more controls step by step based on what families ask for.
The new tools follow the dedicated Parental controls section WhatsApp added to iPhone in August for parent-managed accounts. That section is built for children below the minimum age in their country or region. The new teen controls are a separate set of tools for older users.
Parents set the privacy rules and teens need a PIN to change them
Parents choose the privacy settings for their teen’s account, including who can see the profile photo and who can add the teen to groups. If a teen wants to relax any of those settings, they need approval from their parent through a parent-set PIN.
Setup takes a single PIN, and the whole feature is optional, so parents can adjust the controls or switch them off at any time depending on how much support their teen needs.
WhatsApp describes the controls as something parents and teens configure together. The company wants them to start conversations about how the teen uses the app.
Group alerts, Channels, Status, and Meta AI all get their own settings
To help parents see who their teen is connecting with, WhatsApp sends a notification in three situations:
- The teen joins a group
- The teen leaves a group
- A group the teen is in grows meaningfully in size
Parents also decide how their teen can use Channels. They choose whose Status updates the teen can see and who can see the teen’s own.
Meta AI gets its own setting, where parents pick between the default 13+ experience and a stricter Limited Content option.
Teen chats and calls stay end-to-end encrypted even with the controls on
With the controls turned on, a teen’s personal messages and calls stay private and protected by end-to-end encryption. WhatsApp says no one outside the chat can see or hear them, and that includes WhatsApp itself.
The controls do not give parents access to what their teen writes or says in a chat. They work on settings and alerts around the account.
iPhone families now have settings at two levels. Apple’s new parental controls are live in iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS, and WhatsApp’s controls apply inside the app. Meta is also pushing Apple and Google to require parental consent for teen app downloads.
WhatsApp has not said in the announcement which countries get the controls first or when every account will have them.
