Meta on Wednesday said it’ll allow high-profile names to be claimed only by legitimate owners as part of its effort to counter impersonation on WhatsApp’s new username feature.
WhatsApp began allowing customers to reserve a unique username this week, with plans for them to become operational later this year.
A WhatsApp spokesperson told LiveMint that they have announced the option for people to reserve their preferred username on WhatsApp. “The ability to use a username is not yet live and will roll out slowly later this year.”
However, to protect against impersonation, the spokesperson said, WhatsApp “held the highest-profile names — think public figures, government entities, celebrities, verified Meta accounts — so they can only ever be claimed by their legitimate owners and lookalike derivatives of known names are held as well.”
The spokesperson also said that users will still require a phone number to use WhatsApp, and claimed that Meta has “built multiple layers of defense against scams” into WhatsApp’s username feature.
“Other users need to know the exact username to message you, we will limit how many new people an account can contact, block repeated attempts to guess someone’s username key, and have systems to detect and remove activity showing common impersonation and abuse patterns,” WhatsApp said.
Once the feature becomes available and someone sends the user a message for the first time via username, Meta said, “We will show you if they’re a new account, if they’re your contact, if you have groups in common, and if they’re based in a different country, so you can decide whether to respond.”
The new feature came under the scrutiny of the Centre, which is expected to ask WhatsApp to explain the feature and its implications, PTI reported, citing anonymous sources.
India is WhatsApp’s largest market with more than 600 million users, and any serious government pushback can limit its ability to roll out the new username feature globally.