Rumour: WhatsApp planning a passcode protection feature
After protecting your private conversations with end-to-end encryption, it seems WhatsApp wants to give you even greater peace of mind by adding passcode protection to its app.
Android Authority has been tipped about the purported six-digit passcode protection feature. The feature was spotted in WhatsApp translation requests, which are text strings sent by the company to volunteers to translate UI and other text, and if real, can indicate the company is working to add passcode protection.
The details were spotted as part of a text translation program for WhatsApp, to convert strings from English into Dutch. Phrases to be translated include “Enter the current six-digit passcode:“, “Passcodes don’t match. Try again.“, and “Enter a recovery email address“, which are all pretty good indicators about what could be heading our way soon.
In the past, leaked translation requests have been a reliable indicator of upcoming features on WhatsApp. So far however, there has been no confirmation about the rollout of the passcode feature from WhatsApp. The move to add passcodes to protect chats seems the next step to enhance messaging experience on WhatsApp.
Recently, WhatsApp finally enabled the mention feature on its Android as well as iPhone apps. The mention feature works same as it does on Facebook and Twitter. Users will have to use “@” sign in a group chat and the app will automatically suggest names of the group members.
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Credit: NDTV, Android Authority
It’s great to see WhatsApp step their security game up. Until they reach messengers like Signal or Threema, they still have a lot of catching up to do.