TL; DR
- MeitY has directed WhatsApp to halt its username rollout and respond within three days.
- The government cited impersonation and fraud risks from the new username feature.
- WhatsApp says high-profile names are reserved, and impersonation detection systems are already in place.
Just yesterday, we covered a comprehensive feature on WhatsApp’s new username, how you can reserve it before it goes live later this year, and its potential use cases. Earlier today, the Indian government issued a formal notice to Meta, directing WhatsApp to halt the rollout of its new username feature.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has cited concerns about impersonation, fraud, and online scams to back its directive to halt the rollout of WhatsApp usernames. It has also given Meta three days to submit a detailed explanation of the feature, including its safeguards and rollout plans.
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Why Did The Government Intervene In The First Place?
WhatsApp opened username reservations on June 29, allowing users to claim a handle in Settings > Account > Username (between 3 and 35 characters). The main idea behind the feature is to allow users to initiate a WhatsApp conversation without sharing their phone number with someone.
However, cybersecurity experts and startup founders raised concerns that users could create usernames resembling those of businesses, government agencies, or public figures, potentially enabling impersonation and financial fraud.
Hence, the government served a notice to Meta in less than 48 hours after WhatsApp announced reservations were open.
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What Did WhatsApp Say About It?
“To protect against impersonation, we’ve 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,” a WhatsApp spokesperson mentioned in a public statement.
Along with that, the spokesperson also mentions how someone would need to know the exact username to text the legitimate owner. The platform will also limit how many new people an account can contact and block repeated attempts to guess someone’s username key.
They’ll also “have systems to detect and remove activity showing common impersonation and abuse patterns.” It remains to be seen whether the government gives Meta the go-ahead about the feature. At the time of writing this article, I could still see my username that I reserved earlier today.
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