Starting today, you will be able to block chats on WhatsApp using your smartphone's password, fingerprint or facial recognition.
WhatsApp continues to add features that are widely requested by its users. The latest was perhaps the most anticipated of all. The service announced that starting today, you'll be able to lock any chat with the password, fingerprint or facial recognition you use to access your smartphone, allowing you to hide your conversations from those who somehow managed to get hold of your smartphone – your toxic partner, for example.
In recent years, WhatsApp has strived to be the private messaging service that users wanted. However, it's true that its privacy features, compared to other platforms, are still not up to par. Chat Lock, as they have named the locking of conversations by password or biometrics, is a step forward to further improve this aspect.
We're used to WhatsApp's new features not being unveiled for several months. With password locking of conversations, however, Meta surprised us with an almost instant launch – it was revealed in early April.
WhatsApp officials say they implemented this approach because there can be a number of scenarios in which it's necessary to block the visibility of chats. For example, we've all come to share personal data. Our phone numbers, emails, and even the location of our home. And if this information is sent to trusted contacts, we don't know if our device will ever fall into the hands of others with bad intentions.
How fingerprint-locked WhatsApp chats work
You should know that when you lock a conversation, the application undergoes changes. Specifically, this conversation will disappear from the main list and will be placed in a special secure folder. The latter will be placed at the bottom of the status bar.
This is the folder that will be protected by your password or biometric data. So, if you want to access any of the private conversations, you will only need to unlock the folder and not each conversation separately.
“We think this feature will be very useful for people who share their phone from time to time with a family member, or when someone else is holding your phone at the exact moment a special message arrives.”
To lock a WhatsApp conversation using a password or biometrics, simply tap on the name of the conversation, then select the lock option. It's as simple as that.
While this feature will be welcomed by many, many users, WhatsApp promises to introduce other new features related to locking conversations in the coming months. For example, the company wants the user to be able to enter a personalized password different from the one on the device. So today is a first approximation of a feature that will become more robust over time.
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