WhatsApp rolls out new privacy features: Here are the details

WhatsApp has introduced new privacy features to keep the stalkers at bay.

 WhatsApp users can now hide their last seen and online activities from people.

Unlike many other WhatsApp features that can be turned on and off by users, these new privacy measures are supposed to work automatically. 

WhatsApp will roll out the feature on the backend side of the app and that users will not have to do anything.

Essentially, there are several third-party apps that can keep track of a WhatsApp user’s last seen and online activities. And this is despite the “Nobody” privacy option being enabled. Not only do these apps track your activities, but they also log them for anyone who wants to keep surveillance on you. 

Unless these third-party apps are not on your contact list or have an active chat with you, they will never be able to find out when you last saw messages or when you were online. 

If you have chatted with an account but you still cannot see their last seen status that is because they have enabled the “My Contacts Except” privacy setting, which is available to some beta users of WhatsApp for Android and WhatsApp for iOS. 

But for everyone else, the new privacy measures will not change anything. This means that your existing chats with contacts and businesses will not be affected.

In other news, WhatsApp was recently spotted testing the waveform appearance for voice messages. The new-look will go well with what the feature is intended for, and it will also allow users to figure out if they should listen to the message on a speaker or if they need earphones to listen to it. The feature is still in beta testing and will take some time before WhatsApp rolls out for everyone.

WhatsApp has introduced new privacy features to keep the stalkers at bay.

 WhatsApp users can now hide their last seen and online activities from people.

Unlike many other WhatsApp features that can be turned on and off by users, these new privacy measures are supposed to work automatically. 

WhatsApp will roll out the feature on the backend side of the app and that users will not have to do anything.

Essentially, there are several third-party apps that can keep track of a WhatsApp user’s last seen and online activities. And this is despite the “Nobody” privacy option being enabled. Not only do these apps track your activities, but they also log them for anyone who wants to keep surveillance on you. 

Unless these third-party apps are not on your contact list or have an active chat with you, they will never be able to find out when you last saw messages or when you were online. 

If you have chatted with an account but you still cannot see their last seen status that is because they have enabled the “My Contacts Except” privacy setting, which is available to some beta users of WhatsApp for Android and WhatsApp for iOS. 

But for everyone else, the new privacy measures will not change anything. This means that your existing chats with contacts and businesses will not be affected.

In other news, WhatsApp was recently spotted testing the waveform appearance for voice messages. The new-look will go well with what the feature is intended for, and it will also allow users to figure out if they should listen to the message on a speaker or if they need earphones to listen to it. The feature is still in beta testing and will take some time before WhatsApp rolls out for everyone.

Given that this is a backend change, it is also not clear when WhatsApp will fully roll it out. In a way, it is a little confusing for users at the moment. So don’t go looking into WhatsApp settings to change anything at the moment.