WhatsApp tests age confirmation in India

WhatsApp has begun testing an optional age-confirmation feature among a limited number of users in India as Meta prepares for the country’s new data-protection requirements.

Some users are being asked to enter their date of birth. Participation is voluntary, and people who decline can continue using the messaging service.

WhatsApp said the information would remain private and would not be visible to other users.

The pilot appears designed to help WhatsApp understand users’ ages rather than immediately restrict access. The company has not said that it is checking dates of birth against government identification or using facial analysis to estimate age.

India’s Digital Personal Data Protection framework defines a child as anyone under 18 and requires companies to obtain verifiable consent from a parent or lawful guardian before processing a child’s personal data, subject to specified exemptions.

The government notified the implementing rules in November 2025, with the main consent requirements being introduced in phases.

The substantive obligations covering consent and children’s data are expected to take effect by May 2027, giving internet companies time to build systems for determining whether a user is an adult and whether parental approval is valid.

The rules allow companies to use reliable identity information or digital tokens to verify an adult providing consent, but do not prescribe a single method that every platform must follow.

Meta has argued that age verification and parental consent should ideally be handled by app stores or at the device level rather than separately by every service.

It says repeated demands for government identification could expose users to greater privacy and security risks.

WhatsApp’s experiment suggests the company is nevertheless preparing an application-level system in markets where local rules may require it.

India is WhatsApp’s largest market, with close to 500 million users. Even a limited change in how the platform records age could therefore become one of the world’s largest tests of online age assurance.