ALBAWABA - Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, announced on Monday the launch of a new feature that allows users to lock their WhatsApp chats with a passcode.
In a statement on the company's official website, Meta said: "Make your most intimate conversations more private," referring to the new feature that enables WhatsApp users to ensure the privacy of their most sensitive chats and secure them from being accessed by anyone who has access to their mobile phone or personal device containing the chat conversations.
Meta explained that the chat lock feature on WhatsApp allows users to place a conversation in a file that can only be accessed using their device passcode or biometric measures, such as fingerprint recognition. Additionally, locking the chat automatically hides conversation details in notifications, ensuring that no sensitive information, such as the sender's name, picture, or message content, appears in WhatsApp notifications.
The company affirmed its primary goal and continuous commitment to finding new ways to help maintain message privacy and security. In the announcement of the new feature, Meta stated, "We're introducing Chat Lock, which lets you protect your most intimate chats with an extra layer of security."
Meta believes that this feature will be beneficial for individuals who occasionally share their phones with family members or in situations when someone else has temporary access to their device while receiving a private conversation at the same time.
The company explained how to use this new feature, stating that users can lock a chat by tapping on the name of an individual or even a group on WhatsApp, and selecting the lock option. To reveal locked chats, users simply need to go to their WhatsApp inbox and enter the device passcode or biometric measures, such as fingerprint recognition.
Meta announced that in the coming months, they will add more options for chat locking, including device-specific locks and creating a dedicated password for chats, allowing users to use a unique and separate password for their conversations apart from the one used for their phone.
The "Chat Lock" feature has been launched globally for WhatsApp users starting on Monday.
