WhatsApp Is Getting A Major Privacy Upgrade And It's About Time

Very soon, you probably will not need to worry that random people on WhatsApp are able to access your phone number. WhatsApp is reportedly working on a privacy feature that will allow WhatsApp users to mask their private phone numbers with a username.

According to a report, you will need to abide by some rules to enable this feature when it is finally released. For instance, usernames cannot begin with “www,” which makes sense as this could potentially allow scammers to impersonate officials from credible websites.

Also, the characters allowed in usernames will be limited to underscores, lowercase letters, periods, and numbers ranging from 0-9. Additionally, every username must contain at least one letter. Hence, there is no room to choose a username comprising only underscores, periods, and numbers.

It is also worth noting that the character length of usernames ranges between 3 and 30, and every username must be unique; as always, you can't choose one that’s already taken. 

For users accessing their WhatsApp account through a browser, the beta update includes a feature that allows people to pick a username and verify if another user has chosen it. A real-time notification alerting other WhatsApp users whenever they change their username is also included in the beta update.

The idea that anyone accessing a WhatsApp account should be able to access users' phone numbers has never made a whole lot of sense. At least, not at a time when malicious actors and scammers have become more sophisticated and aggressive in an attempt to steal personal information from unsuspecting victims. According to WABetainfo, this privacy feature is still being developed, and it is not yet available for beta testing. When it becomes generally available, it will go a long way to underscore Meta's sincerity in protecting user privacy.