WhatsApp makes major changes to terms and conditions

The new changes are WhatsApp’s response to new European regulations, the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, which require firms to be clearer about how they moderate and deliver content

WhatsApp is making several changes to its terms and conditions.

The new changes are WhatsApp’s response to new European regulations, the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, which require firms to be clearer about how they moderate and deliver content.

The new terms will include extra information about what is or is not permitted on the app, give more information about an EU requirement that will force companies like WhatsApp to allow users to send messages to users on other third-party apps, and will include more information about how content is moderated on the Channels feature.

The requirement to allow messaging to other apps – which the European rules call “interoperability” – is perhaps the most vital change to the new rules. They note that some data will be sent to those third-party messaging services, and therefore might not be subject to WhatsApp’s privacy commitments.

Apart from those changes made in response to European rules, the minimum age to use WhatsApp in Europe and the UK will fall from 16 to 13. It is currently 13 in some countries, and WhatsApp said it had made the decision to ensure consistency.

WhatsApp’s update to its terms and conditions has proven controversial in the past. In late 2020 and early 2021, it introduced new rules about data sharing – which prompted a major outrage.

This time around, WhatsApp emphasised that it remained committed to user privacy.

These updates for users in the European Region don’t change our commitment to user privacy and don’t expand any data sharing when messaging other WhatsApp users, according to a WhatsApp spokesperson.

The spokesperson added: Wherever you are in the world, we protect all personal messages with end-to-end encryption, which means no one, not even WhatsApp, can read or listen to them.