The Ministry reminded the company that WhatsApp, as a “significant social media intermediary”, is required to comply with due diligence obligations under the IT Rules.
Following the recent introduction of WhatsApp’s ‘usernames’ feature, the Indian government has issued a formal notice to Meta, seeking a detailed explanation of the new functionality within three days.“Government has directed Meta not to roll out the ‘usernames’ feature until consultation on the matter is over,” highly-placed government sources said. The government believes the feature can be misused in a manner similar to Telegram, which was temporarily blocked for a week during the NEET UG 2026 examinations over concerns that anonymous accounts were being used to circulate leaked examination material.“This is not acceptable... We will look at rules, law and if required, law will be made to stop WhatsApp from username login. It is dangerous, not good for society, not for anyone. It is prone to impersonation... anyone can open an account in another name, and people may do financial frauds using fake name,” a senior government official said.Global rolloutIn its formal communication to Meta, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said it had taken note of WhatsApp’s public announcement that it had commenced a phased global rollout of the feature, including in India. According to the notice, the feature would allow users to reserve unique usernames and, once fully activated, “initiate and conduct conversations by exchanging usernames alone, without disclosing their mobile telephone numbers.”The Ministry said it was concerned that once the feature is enabled, “the recipient’s phone number will no longer be visible to a first-time contact” and that the change “may materially increase the incidence of online fraud, phishing, digital arrest scams and impersonation attacks, by enabling bad actors to solicit and message victims.”Accordingly, the Ministry directed Meta to explain “why regulatory action ought not to be initiated” under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, for launching a feature that “may increase cybercrimes”. It reminded the company that WhatsApp, as a “significant social media intermediary”, is required to comply with due diligence obligations under the IT Rules.The notice specifically referred to Section 79 of the IT Act governing intermediary liability protections, Rules 3 and 4 of the IT Rules relating to due diligence and identification of the first originator where lawfully required, and Sections 66C and 66D of the IT Act dealing with identity theft and cheating by personation using computer resources.Government’s concernsResponding to the government’s concerns, Meta said the feature has not yet been activated and will be introduced gradually later this year.“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,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said.Meta also stressed that users would still need a phone number to create and use a WhatsApp account. According to the company, there will be multiple layers of protection against scams, including requiring users to know the exact username before they can initiate contact, limiting the number of new people an account can message, blocking repeated attempts to guess a user’s username key, and deploying automated systems to detect and remove impersonation and abuse.Published on July 1, 2026
