The messaging app WhatsApp, owned by Meta, has introduced a new feature called Secret Code that allows users to secure private conversations on the platform with a unique password.
WhatsApp Unveils “Secret Code” Feature
The feature described as an “additional way to protect those chats and make them harder to find if someone has access to your phone or you share a phone with someone else.”
Secret Code expands on Chat Lock, an additional feature that WhatsApp unveiled in May and which relocates chats to a distinct folder accessible only with a device password or biometric.
According to WhatsApp, to provide users with an extra layer of privacy by using different passwords for these locked chats than the one used to unlock the phone.
“You’ll have the option to hide the Locked Chats folder from your chatlist so that they can only be discovered by typing your secret code in the search bar,” it added.
“Protect IP Address in Calls” Feature
This development occurs a few weeks after WhatsApp unveiled its “Protect IP Address in Calls” feature, which uses its servers to relay calls while hiding users’ IP addresses from third parties.
It also comes after the French government issued a call for ministers, secretaries of state, and cabinet members to switch to homegrown Tchap (based on the Matrix protocol) and Olvid by December 8, 2023, instead of using popular messaging apps like WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram.
A leaked document used in the news, which was first reported by Le Point.
Security Issues
It stated that “these digital tools are not devoid of security vulnerabilities and therefore do not ensure the security of conversations and information shared through them.”
Meredith Whittaker, president of Signal, retaliated against the French government’s decision by saying, “This claim is dangerously misleading, especially coming from the government, and is not supported by any evidence.”
WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart agreed, stating, “We are of the same opinion.”
To read our blog on “WhatsApp AI chatbot shortcut unveils in its Beta version,” click here.
