Government Sends Notices to WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal Over New Username Feature

India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, or MeitY, has sent formal notices to three popular messaging apps within two days of each other. WhatsApp received one on July 1, 2026, followed by Telegram and Signal on July 2. All three notices ask the companies to share details about a feature that lets users pick a public username instead of showing their phone number to others.

Of the three apps, only Telegram and Signal already offer this feature, and it remained active on both platforms even after the notices were sent. WhatsApp, owned by Meta, has not rolled out usernames anywhere in the world yet, but it has started letting users reserve one in advance for when the feature launches. Representatives from Telegram and Signal said they did not have an immediate response to the notices.

This government action follows a tense week for Telegram in India. Authorities had blocked the app entirely for about a week, arguing that certain PDF files on the platform carried altered dates that could wrongly convince people a medical entrance exam question paper had been leaked before the test. Telegram challenged this ban in the Delhi High Court, calling it a mistake, but the court upheld the government's decision as a fair and measured response. The app was restored only after the NEET exam was conducted, and only after it emerged that the exam's first attempt had genuinely suffered a leak.

The new notices against WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal appear to be a continuation of the government's scrutiny of messaging platforms, this time focused specifically on features that protect user privacy by concealing phone numbers.

The Internet Freedom Foundation, a digital rights advocacy organisation based in Delhi, has strongly criticised the notices. It described the government's approach as an unconstitutional overreach into privacy-protecting features, noting that hiding phone numbers behind a username is a design choice common across all three apps.

The organisation argued that no existing law, including the Information Technology Act, gives the government explicit authority to restrict such features. It said any regulation of this kind must come through clear legislation, not administrative notices, and that the current notices lack that legal grounding.

The group expressed particular concern about the notice sent to Signal. It pointed out that Signal collects almost no data about its users or their activity and has consistently refused to build any searchable directory of accounts, a step that would be necessary if authorities wanted to identify users through usernames. Because Signal is widely used by journalists, activists and people facing security risks, the foundation warned that targeting it could directly threaten protected forms of communication.

As of now, no changes have been made to how any of the three apps operate, and the username features remain functional. It is unclear how the companies will respond to the notices or whether the government will take further action.