WhatsApp to ban under-16s from messaging service in the EU

​WhatsApp has announced plans to raise its minimum age from 13 to 16 the European Union in order to comply with new data privacy rules.

The popular messaging service, owned by Facebook, will ask European users to confirm they are at least 16 years old when they are prompted to agree to new terms of service and a privacy policy in the next few weeks.

The move comes before the introduction of new European privacy regulations next month.

It is not clear how or if the age limit will be checked.

Facebook, which has a separate data policy, is taking a different approach to teens and is instead asking them to nominate a parent or guardian to give permission for them to share information on the platform.

But WhatsApp, which had more than 1.5 billion users in January according to Facebook, said in a blog post it was not asking for any new rights to collect personal information in the agreement it has created for the European Union.

“Our goal is simply to explain how we use and protect the limited information we have about you,” it said.

WhatsApp’s minimum age of use will remain at 13 years in the rest of the world.

General Data Protection Regulation is the biggest overhaul of online privacy since the birth of the internet, giving Europeans the right to know what data is stored on them and the right to have it deleted.

European regulators have already disrupted a move by WhatsApp to change its policies which would allow it to share users’ phone numbers and other information with Facebook to help improve the product and more effectively target ads.

WhatsApp suspended the change in Europe after widespread regulatory scrutiny. It said on Tuesday it still wanted to share the data at some point.

Other changes announced by WhatsApp on Tuesday include allowing users to download a report detailing the data it holds on them, such as the make and model of the device they used, their contacts and groups and any blocked numbers.