Thousands of WhatsApp users in Ireland are set to benefit from a brand new privacy feature launched this week that helps to protect their intimate conversations.
The new feature being rolled out from today is called Chat Lock and it allows users to put specific conversations in a separate folder, which can then only be opened with a password, face ID or fingerprint from the user. Notifications will also hide the sender and contents of locked conversations.
It means that if somebody else has hold of your phone, they won't be able to see anything that's been assigned to the Lock folder on WhatsApp. Your private chats will instead be stored in a section at the top of the apps labeled "locked chats".
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In a statement WhatsApp said: "We think this feature will be great for people who have reason to share their phones from time to time with a family member or those moments where someone else is holding your phone at the exact moment an extra special chat arrives.
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's chief executive officer, confirmed the new feature in a Facebook post. He said: "New locked chats in WhatsApp make your conversations more private.
"They're hidden in a password protected folder and notifications won't show sender or message content." The company added that it will also be introducing more options for Chat Lock, which includes locking for companion devices and creating a custom password for your chats so that you can use a unique password different from your phone’s.
The latest new privacy feature joins WhatsApp's growing list of privacy features such as end-to-end-encryption, screenshot blocking, disappearing messaging, and more.
How to turn on chat lock:
You can use Chat Lock on your iPhone or Android phone, here's what you should do to activate it:
- Tap chat info > Chat lock.
- Tap Lock this chat with fingerprint or Lock This Chat with Face ID.
- Tap View to see the chat in the Locked chats folder.
You can turn chat lock off or on within the chat’s info for each chat you want to lock. If you don’t have your device authentication set up yet, such as your phone passcode, fingerprint or Face ID, you’ll be prompted to set it up before locking a chat.
How will I know if I have a new message?
When chats are locked, the notification content and contact are hidden. The notification will show as WhatsApp: 1 new message. If you want to keep media private, you'll have to turn chat lock off to save media to your phone’s gallery and group chats and muted chats will also be locked.
However, the new feature doesn't lock calls, and if you have your WhatsApp linked up to another device such as a laptop/computer the chats on those linked devices won’t be locked.
And to backup and restore feature on WhatsApp., your locked chats will still be locked once you restore the app onto a new phone. If you want to access your locked chats, you'll need to have device authentication (fingerprint or Face ID) set up first.
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