WhatsApp update: What are the new privacy features that have been added to app?
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.There are three main tools – two of which are arriving now, and another that is still in testing but will arrive soon.
All of the features are aimed at much the same thing: giving better ways of deciding who can see what you are doing.
Here are the three new changes.
Disappearing messages really disappear
WhatsApp has offered the option to set messages to “view once” for a while. The tool is intended to make it harder for people to store pictures when they are sent, and to make them more ephemeral.
But until now there has been a way to make those messages last longer: screenshooting them, so that they are stored on a device forever.
Now, WhatsApp will block that, by stopping phones from being able to take a screenshot of those messages.
It will still be possible to save them, by taking a picture of the screen, for instance. But it will become much harder.
This is the one feature that is yet to be released and which WhatsApp says is still in testing.
Decide who can see you are online
WhatsApp allows people to see when you are online, broadcasting when you have the app open. It is presumably intended to make people feel more engaged, but can be prying.
It was already possible to switch that setting on and off, so that nobody could see you were online. That also worked the other way – if you turned off your own online status, then you couldn’t see anyone else’s either.
But until now it has been all or nothing. Now, WhatsApp will allow people to choose who can see your online status, and who can’t.
Silently leaving groups
There has never been any way to quietly exit groups: you had to do it dramatically, with a message that indicated you had left to everyone still in the group. It could be useful during an argument but drastic if you just wanted to slip out.
(Until now, the best option has been to mute the conversation and then archive it, which has much the same effect as leaving but doesn’t put up the notification.)
Now WhatsApp wil let you leave quietly, without that notification. Admins will be alerted that you’ve left the chat, but nobody else will.
A little longer to delete messages
As a bonus, WhatsApp also announced that users will have a longer time to delete messages. That wasn’t part of the main new set of features, but came at roughly the same time.
Previously, the limit was 1 hour, 8 minutes, and 16 seconds. (It was seven minutes, when it was first introduced in 2017.)
Now it’s two and a half days – or 60 hours.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments