Whatsapp Will Soon Be Asking For Your Fingerprints

By Tony Winterburn • 30 January 2021 • 12:52

Whatsapp Will Soon Be Asking For Your Fingerprints- Will you comply?. image: Pexels

Whatsapp Will Soon Be Asking For Your Fingerprints-Will You Comply?

Unlike Facebook Messenger and other services that work with a simple user name and password, WhatsApp accounts are tied to a phone number, so using the desktop app requires a connection to your mobile device. Now the company wants to improve that and is asking for your biometric data also.

WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned popular messaging app with more than 2 billion users, has been getting a lot of heat and losing users in recent weeks after announcing (and then delaying) changes to how it uses your data.

A very badly-explained update to its terms of service forced millions of WhatsApp users to adopt alternative services such as Signal and Telegram. Apparently, the exodus was so large that WhatsApp has been forced to delay the implementation of the new terms, which had been scheduled for 8 February.

The company is not done however with how it’s tweaking privacy and security as it is now adding a new biometric feature to the service to bring in a new security/authentication layer for those using its web and desktop versions- it wants to make that you are who you say you are basically.

The company said it will now let people add in a fingerprint, face, or iris scan to use WhatsApp on desktop or web by linking it to your mobile app, to be used alongside the existing QR code authentication.

WhatsApp, which will soon implement a revised privacy policy that allows it to share information with Facebook, says it won’t have access to your biometrics at all and will conduct the authentication process through your phone’s OS.

Whether the billions of people that use the service will comply and scan their fingerprints or send their unique biometric information to WhatsApp remains to be seen- Big Brother anyone?

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