Let’s go back to talking about WhatsApp, the best-known instant messaging service in the world, and this time we don’t do it to analyze the news of some new app updates, but to bring you an official announcement regarding the privacy of the company headed by Meta.
In recent weeks we have told you about much interesting news related to WhatsApp, both for the stable version and for the Beta. From the reactions finally available for everyone to the new end-to-end encryption indicators arriving, passing through the future possibility of use on more than one smartphone and tools for group administrators, to the work of improving ephemeral messages.
Without forgetting the extended groups of up to 512 people available to everyone, the list of former participants, and the WhatsApp Premium subscription plan. The most recent changes concern groups, as well as the future possibility of editing text messages, sending files, the double verification code to prevent account theft, returning to the old home screen and status updates. If you missed any of these new features, you can retrieve them via the links above, but now let’s take a look at the new privacy options just announced.
WhatsApp: new privacy options for everyone
In the communication strategy of WhatsApp, the talk about user privacy is always very present – on the other hand, end-to-end encryption is probably the strong point that the giant points out most often -, but, net of the proclamations, every time the service introduces new functions that are concretely useful to enhance the protection of the personal information of its users, it is certainly good news.
And this is precisely the case: using their official Twitter account, the WhatsApp team has recently announced the rollout of new dedicated options in the Settings section dedicated to privacy. The release is underway at the moment for everyone and the result of the novelty is soon said: thanks to these new options, users have the possibility to select which of their contacts can see their profile picture, their information and state. For each of these items, it is possible to select various display options: All, My contacts, My contacts except, None.
Here’s how the novelty is illustrated on the official website:
Change your privacy settings to control who can see your information. You can set your last login, profile picture, info section or status as follows:
- Everyone: your last login, profile picture, Info section or status will be visible to all WhatsApp users.
- My contacts: your last login, profile picture, info section or status will only be visible to contacts in your phone’s address book.
- My contacts except…: your last access, your profile picture, the Info section or the status will be visible to the contacts in your phone’s address book, except those you decide to exclude.
- None: your last login, profile picture, info section, or status will not be visible to anyone.
How to update WhatsApp and sign up for the Beta program
If you don’t want to risk missing out on the latest news and the latest officially released by the WhatsApp team, you can check that you have installed the latest version of the app available directly from the Google Play Store.
In case you are eager to try the preview news proposed by WhatsApp Beta for Android, you can proceed by subscribing to the Beta Program (you can find the page dedicated to the program by following this link). If the Beta Program is complete at this time, you can proceed with the manual installation of the related APK files, which can be downloaded from the APK Mirror portal (whose dedicated page can be reached by clicking on this link).
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