“Chat for your eyes only”: WhatsApp announces update – Panorama

The web version should have facial recognition –
Three hours ago

Mountain View – For a long time WhatsApp Germany’s number one messenger service was almost unquestioned. Although, the company announced that it would introduce changed data security guidelines in May, many users turned away from WhatsApp. The California company wants to counter the trend with two updates.

On the one hand, security has to be increased when using the desktop version: before that, the user had to scan a QR code from a smartphone to be able to receive and send messages to the computer.

Today we are starting to introduce a new security feature for WhatsApp web and desktop: Face and fingerprint unlock when linking devices.

WhatsApp does not see your face or fingerprint data.

Chat for you onlyhttps://t.co/qR3zsexzfj pic.twitter.com/Ei5G35MPpA

– WhatsApp (@WhatsApp) January 28, 2021

As WhatsApp has now announced via Twitter, users should now log in through biometric settings as part of the update.

The instant messenger service provides facial recognition and fingerprint as an alternative. WhatsApp made it clear that both variants have not been seen by the company. Since the update has been rolled out since last Thursday, it should reach Germany soon as well.

The smartphone app is to be enhanced by another function that is supposed to provide more security: the “read later” feature. Messages should no longer appear suddenly on the screen, but recipients can set that they want to read the message later. WhatsApp first offered the archive function, although messages from archived chats also appeared on the display.

Bad WhatsApp option: this is why you should not switch to Telegram

With two updates to its web and smartphone apps, WhatsApp is pursuing the goal of registering and protecting personal messages from hacker attacks, with the motto “chat only to your eyes”.