{"id":285526,"date":"2026-07-03T23:02:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T03:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/03\/whats-in-a-whatsapp-username-privacy-fraud-fears-govts-power-over-apps\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T00:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T04:50:08","slug":"whats-in-a-whatsapp-username-privacy-fraud-fears-govts-power-over-apps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/03\/whats-in-a-whatsapp-username-privacy-fraud-fears-govts-power-over-apps\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s in a WhatsApp username? Privacy, fraud fears & govt’s power over apps"},"content":{"rendered":"

What’s in a WhatsApp username? Privacy, fraud fears & govt’s power over apps<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/theprint.in\/opinion\/newsmaker-of-the-week\/whats-in-a-whatsapp-username-privacy-fraud-fears-govts-power-over-apps\/2977201\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-07-03 23:02:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: theprint.in<\/a><\/p>\n

A<\/span> username is a small thing, but small features have set off big fights before. This one is shaping up to be among the bigger. Meta-owned WhatsApp announced it in a blog post on Monday. By Thursday, the government had served notices not just to Meta, but also to Telegram and Signal over similar features. It\u2019s become one of the most revealing tests yet of how much New Delhi can police what a private messaging app ships.<\/p>\n

The new WhatsApp global head Kunal Shah described the new feature as a \u201cmore private way to connect\u201d. It lets one user message another inside WhatsApp without either side seeing the other\u2019s phone number. The company says it is optional, that handles cannot be searched by strangers, and that users can switch on an extra \u201cusername key\u201d so both pieces are needed before anyone can start a chat.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes you just want to chat without handing over your digits,\u201d said a WhatsApp blog, inviting people to reserve a handle ahead of a full rollout later this year.<\/p>\n

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It seems modest enough, especially when other messaging apps already have similar features. But for a platform with more than 500 million users in India, its single largest market, this is not a minor tweak. And for a government that has spent the past year tightening its watch over messaging platforms, it landed at a sensitive moment.<\/p>\n

It is because of this collision, between a privacy feature and a state deeply wary of it, that the WhatsApp username is ThePrint\u2019s Newsmaker of the week.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the IT ministry sent a notice to WhatsApp\u2019s chief compliance officer for India operations, asking Meta to freeze the rollout and explain the feature within three days or face regulatory action over concerns around fraud. The next day, notices went to Signal and Telegram, asking them to explain the safeguards around their own numberless messaging features.<\/p>\n

Pushback is now trickling in from digital rights groups, while for various messaging…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What’s in a WhatsApp username? Privacy, fraud fears & govt’s power over apps https:\/\/theprint.in\/opinion\/newsmaker-of-the-week\/whats-in-a-whatsapp-username-privacy-fraud-fears-govts-power-over-apps\/2977201\/ Publish…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":285527,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/staticprintenglish.theprint.in\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/WhatsApp-Telegram-Signal.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-285526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285526"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285526"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":285528,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285526\/revisions\/285528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}