A major new privacy update on the way for WhatsApp will enable you to chat to friends, businesses and communities using a username – avoiding the need to share your actual phone number.
Announced on Thursday, the Meta-owned application is giving its more than three billion users a chance to register a unique username prior to the rollout across all territories later this year.
With an activate username enabled, people can start new conversations and receive new messages using your preferred alias instead of your phone number, with contacts not currently saved in your address book unaware of the number at all.
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WhatsApp’s VP of product, Alice Newton-Rex, said: “Username represents a fundamental improvement to the platform that will make our users feel safer and, I think, more in control of their information than ever before.”
Newton-Rex explained: “This has been a common pain point in chat since the beginning: to start talking to a new person, or a new business, or to someone in a new community, you’ve had to share a phone number, and the risk associated with that is going to be reduced significantly now because of this.” Users will begin receiving prompts to register their chosen username on the newest versions of WhatsApp, through either the account settings or your profile tab depending on operating system (e.g. Settings > accounts > username on Android).
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You must ensure your chosen identifier is three to 35 characters in length, and the platform has also reserved some usernames – including those registered to public figures, public identities and organisations – to avoid impersonations. WhatsApp has also stressed that there won’t be any type of username search feature, or public directory available, meaning that you have to know the specific username in order to get in touch with somebody.
Furthermore, an optional ‘Username Key’ will give the additional security layer, with users able to decide who can message their username even if it has already become public.
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If you have already got someone saved in your contacts list, or have communicated via phone, then their username is not mandatory, and the platform will continue to allow sharing of existing phone numbers to already known contacts.
