Government Tells WhatsApp to Pause Its New Username Feature Over Fraud Fears

The Indian government has stepped in to block WhatsApp from launching a new feature that would let users pick a public username instead of sharing their phone number. The order comes just days after WhatsApp announced the feature, which is meant to give users more privacy by letting them message someone using a chosen name rather than their number.

The concern raised by officials is straightforward: usernames can be faked or closely copied. Someone could create a username that looks almost identical to that of a celebrity, government office, or well-known brand, and use it to trick ordinary users into believing they are talking to a real, trusted account. Officials worry this could worsen existing scams, including so-called digital arrest frauds, where criminals impersonate authorities to intimidate victims into paying money.

According to officials, the Ministry of Home Affairs first flagged the issue to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. The government has now asked Meta, WhatsApp's parent company, to submit a detailed explanation of how the feature works within three days. Until consultations are complete, WhatsApp has been told not to roll out the feature in India at all.

WhatsApp has defended the feature, saying it has built in protections. The company says well-known public figures, institutions, and verified accounts will have their names protected so that copycats cannot claim similar usernames. It also says users will still need a phone number to use WhatsApp at all, and that there are limits on how many strangers an account can contact, along with systems to detect suspicious behaviour.

WhatsApp further explained that when someone messages a person for the first time using a username, the receiver will be shown context clues, such as whether the sender is a brand-new account, whether they share mutual contacts or groups, and whether they appear to be messaging from another country. This is meant to help users judge whether to trust the message.

Despite these safeguards, business leaders have publicly raised doubts. The heads of Paytm and Mobikwik both warned that lookalike usernames could easily be used for fraud, with one noting that many variations of his own name were already taken by unknown accounts.

Government officials have indicated that if WhatsApp's answers do not convince them that enough protections exist, they could consider stopping the feature from launching in India altogether, not just delaying it. For now, WhatsApp is only allowing users to reserve a username in advance, without letting anyone actually use it to message others yet.

Similar username-based messaging already exists on apps like Telegram and Signal, so the idea itself isn't new to the messaging world. What is different here is the scale of WhatsApp's user base in India and the level of concern among regulators about how easily such a feature could be misused for impersonation-driven fraud.