Additionally, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has directed Meta to furnish a detailed explanation on ‘usernames’ with the next three-days.
According to government sources, a meeting is scheduled for Thursday between MeitY, MHA, and messaging platforms with similar features.
“The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) first raised concerns about cyber fraud, which it conveyed to MeitY. A meeting has been conveyed and officials from MHA, MietY and executives from peer to peer messaging platforms will discuss the concerns around usernames,” said a senior government official.
A senior official told BS that the examination will be based on whether the feature could potentially be used by scammers. The official added that instances of usernames being unavailable to original and or genuine users were also being brought to notice of WhatsApp, and would also be examined.
While Meta did not comment on the issue, source within the company confirmed that a notice has been sent by MeitY.
A Meta spokesperson said: “We’ve announced the option for people to reserve their preferred username on WhatsApp. The ability to use a username is not yet live and will roll out slowly later this year. To protect against impersonation, we’ve held the highest-profile names — think public figures, government entities, celebrities, verified Meta accounts — so they can only ever be claimed by their legitimate owners and lookalike derivatives of known names are held as well. Users still require a phone number to use WhatsApp and we’ve built multiple layers of defense against scams into usernames.”
The company further added, “When the feature becomes available and someone sends you a message for the first time via your username, we will show you if they’re a new account, if they’re your contact, if you have groups in common, and if they’re based in a different country, so you can decide whether to respond. ”
“We’ve built layered protections to protect our users. Existing Facebook and Instagram usernames are reserved for their owners during the reservation period and for a limited time after,” said the company on security.
The company further added, “On top of that, our automated systems detect and remove activity or ban accounts showing common impersonation and abuse patterns. For example, we will limit how many new people any account can contact through usernames and block repeated attempts to guess someone’s username key. We also limit how often users can change their usernames to protect against abuse.”
