India has asked Meta to hold off launching its username feature on WhatsApp in the world’s most populous country, citing concerns over fraud and impersonation, media reports said on Thursday.
The move comes as authorities in India grapple with a spike in cybercrime, with scammers exploiting low digital safety awareness among millions of internet users.
WhatsApp, owned by US tech giant Meta, said Monday that users worldwide would be able to connect via unique usernames instead of sharing their phone numbers, an upcoming feature it said was designed to enhance privacy.
India, WhatsApp’s largest market with more than half a billion users, voiced concerns Wednesday that the change could make it easier for fraudsters to target victims.
In a letter to Meta, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said the feature could lead to an increase in online fraud, phishing, digital arrest scams and impersonation attacks, the Indian Express newspaper reported.
