How to lock WhatsApp on your smartphone

Published Feb 18, 2019

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DURBAN - Popular messaging app WhatsApp now has a feature that allows users to lock their chats behind its own security checks according to My Broadband. 

Although WhatsApp does provide support for end to end encryption this cannot stop a person from accessing your WhatsApp messages if they have physical access to your smartphone. 

For this reason, WhatsApp allows users to lock their chats with this new feature. 

iOS

A biometric security feature for iPhones was launched recently by WhatsApp. This feature makes the process of locking easy due to Face ID or Touch ID being used for authentication when accessing the messaging app.

 

The locking feature on iOS can be activated by going to your Settings then tapping on Account and then tap on Privacy on WhatsApp. Then the user must enable the Screen Lock feature. 

After the settings has been changed, the user will have to authenticate their identity with Touch ID OR Face ID. The locking feature does not hide push notification. 

Android

Android does not have a locking feature available for WhatsApp, unlike iOS, this means that Android users will have to rely on third-party apps. Android devices Huawei and Samsung do have security tools that could act as password locks for WhatsApp. 

Some of Huawei's devices have a native lock application where a password or a biometric authentication can be applied to apps that are on a device. 

New WhatsApp features

WABetaInfo reported last week that WhatsApp is developing a group invitation feature that would prevent users from being added to groups without their permission. According to WaBetaInfo, the invitation will have two options accept or decline and the invitation will expire after 72 hours. 

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