The concerns around WhatsApp rolling out usernames got heated up in India leading to a situation of government intervention. On Wednesday, India’s IT Ministry gave WhatsApp a notice to explain why a regulatory action should not be initiated against its upcoming usernames feature given its potential to spike cybercrimes.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has asked WhatsApp to not roll out the usernames in India until a formal consultation is achieved to the satisfaction of the government.
The messaging platform with end-to-end encryption now has three days to submit an official response to the IT ministry’s notice in its largest market.
WhatApp’s privacy upgrade sparks debates
Earlier this week, the Meta-owned messaging platform decided to refresh its user privacy feature for the global userbase of three billion. The app essentially gave its users an option to reserve usernames so, in the future they would not have to share their phone numbers to connect with people on WhatsApp.
The announcement met with mixed reactions on social media in the last 48 hours. While some agreed that the elimination of phone number exchanges could be a good development, the others said impersonation scams could rise as .bad actors could easily register lookalike handles of prominent individuals, government agencies, and businesses.
WhatsApp’s reponse to the situation so far
Over the last 24 hours, WhatsApp has issued multiple explanations on how the usernames would actualy work.
The app has highlighted that adopting a username is optional and not everybody has to claim one. It also said that it will be screening the reserved usernames to ensure that high-value usernames go to the associated individuals only to curb chances of impersonation.
On Wednesday the platform said, “We’ve held well-known names and some variations of them – like public figures, celebrities, government entities and Meta-verified accounts – so they can only be claimed by their legitimate owners. If you try to reserve those, the system will say it’s not available.”
WhatsApp also said that just like phone numbers cannot be searched on the app, usernames will be unsearchable as well.
“The best way to prevent someone from contacting you is to add a username key and to choose a username that is unique to WhatsApp,” it noted. “If you want the same username as your Instagram or Facebook account, you’ll have to link them. This one of the ways to reduce impersonation.”
As of now, an exact release timeline for the username feature has not been disclosed by WhatsApp, It said that with the username reservations having gone live, the platform will be analyzing the feedback and release the best version of the intended feature.
