WhatsApp Rolls Out Username Feature to Enhance Privacy: No More Phone Numbers Needed

WhatsApp is the world's most popular messenger with 3 billion active users per month, but only now Meta is completing the deployment of an important option — the ability to find users by their nicknames without linking to a phone number.

What is known

The developer will allow WhatsApp users to provide their contact as a nickname in the format @username — just like it is implemented, for example, in Telegram.

This will enhance user privacy by eliminating the need to disclose their phone number.

The first rumors about adding such functionality appeared back in 2023, but all this time it has remained in testing. This delay is due to the fact that Meta wanted to ensure the maximum stability and security of the new system, for which they repeatedly rewrote the software code.

The update is not yet available to everyone, and to check for its presence in your WhatsApp, you need to go to “Settings,” and there should be a section “Username.”

Users will be able to pull their nickname from Facebook or Instagram or create a new one.

However, there are a few restrictions:

• the nickname must be between 3 and 30 characters long;
• the nickname cannot start with “www” or a dot (and it cannot end with one);
• there must be at least one letter;
• only lowercase letters (a–z), numbers (0–9), dots, and underscores are allowed;
• domains (.com or .net) cannot be used.

Source: Android Police