WhatsApp is shifting forward with its usernames change, with a brand new replace now hiding consumer telephone numbers completely when viewing their WhatsApp profile.
As you’ll be able to see on this instance, posted by Android Police, WhatsApp is presently creating a brand new profile show that can disguise consumer telephone numbers, and can solely show your chosen username within the app as an alternative.
WhatsApp’s been engaged on the username replace for a while, because it seems to be to maneuver extra into line with the social media type strategy to identification, whereas additionally providing extra safety for consumer telephone numbers.
Usernames add one other layer of separation between your on-line and IRL identities, which could be notably precious when coping with companies, or folks that you simply don’t personally know within the app.
Again in November, WhatsApp started informing customers of the approaching choice:
The replace additionally implies that manufacturers will have the ability to create a extra distinctive identification within the app, which may increase your branding efforts.
The change additionally comes after a group of Austrian researchers uncovered a possible flaw in WhatsApp’s safety, which might allow spammers and scammers to collect massive databases of telephone numbers based mostly on this characteristic.
The analysis group used a spread of random telephone quantity mixtures within the app to extract over 3.5 billion customers’ telephone numbers from the platform.
WhatsApp has since confirmed that it has addressed this concern, based mostly on these findings, and has reassured customers that there’s no proof of the method getting used as an information gathering choice. However the swap to usernames will additional plug this hole both approach, and be sure that WhatsApp customers aren’t exposing their contact data unwittingly.
So, time to prepare for WhatsApp usernames, which can seemingly quickly be a key identifier within the app.
