On Monday, Mark Zuckerberg announced the launch of a new WhatsApp feature called “Chat Lock” to make discussions “more private.”
According to WhatsApp, this feature allows users to encrypt their most private conversations with a password and save them in a separate folder, and when someone messages users when that chat is locked, the sender’s name and the content of the message are also hidden.
Chat Lock is the latest addition to WhatsApp’s increasing array of privacy features, which includes end-to-end encryption and encrypted backups, disappearing messages, screenshot blocking, and limits over who can see when users were last online.

“It is our passion to discover new ways to keep your messages private and secure.” “We’re excited to introduce Chat Lock, a new feature that allows you to protect your most private conversations behind an extra layer of security,” WhatsApp stated in a statement.

“Locking a chat removes that thread from the inbox and places it in its own folder that can only be accessed with your device password or biometric, such as a fingerprint.” It also hides the contents of the chat from notifications,” the business noted.

This function, according to WhatsApp, will be ideal for people who need to share their phones with a family member from time to time, or for those times when someone else is holding their phone at the same moment a ‘particularly special’ chat arrives.

According to the firm, users can lock a chat by pressing the name of a one-to-one or group conversation and selecting the lock option. They can reveal these talks by pulling down on their inbox and entering their phone password or biometric information.

“Over the next few months, we’ll be adding more Chat Lock options, such as locking for companion devices and creating a custom password for your chats so that you can use a unique password different from your phone’s,” WhatsApp noted.

Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com