- WhatsApp is developing a section dedicated to birthdays with internal reminders.
- The function is based on date of birth data collected for legal requirements in the U.S.
- Users will receive notifications when a contact has a birthday, without the need for external calendars.
- Privacy remains an unknown, although controls are expected before launch.
How many times have you remembered a friend's birthday only after seeing that others had already wished them a happy birthday? That situation, more common than it seems, could soon be a thing of the past. WhatsApp, the most popular messaging app in Spain, is developing a feature that will notify users when their contacts' birthdays are approaching, integrating the reminders directly into the chat interface.
The new feature was discovered in WhatsApp beta version 2.26.27.3 for Android, according to the specialized website WABetaInfo. Although it's still in an early stage of development and not yet available to beta testers, the function promises to be a very practical tool for remembering important dates. Interestingly, this feature stems from a prior legal requirement: collecting birth dates to comply with age verification regulations in the United States.
Regulatory origin of the function
The origin of this feature was not an idea to improve social interaction, but a legal requirementIn beta version 2.24.12.25, WhatsApp began requesting the birth year from some users to comply with age verification laws passed in several US states. Initially, this information was strictly confidential and was not shared with other contacts.
Now, Meta has decided to give that information a second life. Data collected for regulatory purposes will be reused to offer a social function: birthday reminders. In this way, a bureaucratic requirement is transformed into an everyday utility for users.
How the birthday section will work
According to leaked screenshots, WhatsApp will incorporate a specific section where you can see the upcoming birthdays of your contacts. The idea is that it functions as a visual summary.This way, users don't have to rely on external calendars or their memory. When the exact day arrives, the app will send an internal notification to remind them it's time to congratulate someone.
It works simply: the section will display a chronologically ordered list with the nearest dates. When the specified date arrives, WhatsApp will issue an alert within the app.inviting the user to send a congratulatory message. This makes perfect sense, since most people already use WhatsApp for that purpose. send funny birthday wishesAnd having the reminder in the same place reduces forgetfulness.
Privacy and data control
One of the aspects that raises the most questions is privacy. In the current development version, WhatsApp has not included specific controls This allows users to decide whether they want to share their date of birth with their contacts or keep it for internal use only. This means that, for now, if a user has entered their date, it may be visible to others in the birthday section.
However, as this is an early stage, it is very likely that Meta will implement privacy options before the official launch. An opt-out button is expected to be added. Similar to the existing settings for profile pictures and last seen time, this will allow users to control who sees their birthday and whether they want it to appear in other people's reminders.
Availability and future
For now, the birthday reminders feature It has only been detected in the beta version 2.26.27.3 of WhatsApp for AndroidAnd it's not even active for beta testers. WhatsApp hasn't confirmed an official release date, and as with many features in development, it might never make it to the stable version.
Furthermore, the usefulness of the function will depend on whether the contacts have registered their date of birth. WhatsApp does not request this information in all regions of the world.Therefore, many users may not initially appear in the reminders. As more people share their date, the section will become more relevant.
With this new feature, WhatsApp goes beyond simply exchanging messages, moving closer to the dynamics of social media. The ability to receive birthday reminders directly in the app where most greetings are already sent is a logical evolution. Although some questions remain about privacy and the launch schedule, everything suggests that Spanish and European users will soon be able to say goodbye to forgetting birthdays and rely a little less on their memory or external calendars.
