If there’s something we always carry with us that stores our private information, it’s our smartphone. Therefore, in the event of theft or prying eyes, you will potentially have a large amount of private data in your hands. And if there is an application where there is hours and hours of chats and personal audiovisual content, that’s WhatsApp.
That said, it’s worth remembering that WhatsApp has a chat blocking feature, but it has one key requirement that limits it: it requires biometric authentication. What happens if your smartphone is so old or so basic that it doesn’t have fingerprint recognition? Well, you can’t use it. Good news for you: the latest WhatsApp for Android beta shows that the development team behind the most used messaging app on the planet is working on fixing it.
Soon you will be able to block your WhatsApp chats even if your mobile does not have biometric recognition
The folks at WABetaInfo have deeply analyzed version 2.24.6.20 of the WhatsApp for Android beta available on the Google Play Store and found that the chat blocking feature has been improved for add new authentication methods to choose from.
So when a user accesses the settings, a description will appear detailing that ‘When enabled you will need use your fingerprint, face or other unique identifiers to open WhatsApp‘, something that previously (come on, in the current public version) only worked with biometric authentication. In this beta version, it is possible to choose other identifiers, such as the phone passcode.
Although this improvement may seem small overall to those who own a relatively modern or mid-range or above phone, The novelty of the tests makes the difference for devices without biometricslike basic mobile phones (or mid-range ones – entry level and a few years behind them).
And in any case, have more authentication options to block chats are always a good idea from a flexibility point of view, in case, for example, you prefer to use other methods or simply, your device is having problems with a component used for these recognition tasks.
Cover | Xataka (Javier Pasteur)
In Xataka Android | If you use WhatsApp and are concerned about security, it is advisable to check it from time to time.
