New Delhi [India]: The Indian government has raised concerns over WhatsApp's newly announced usernames feature, asking the Meta-owned messaging platform to explain how it plans to prevent fraud and impersonation before the feature is rolled out in the country.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has reportedly issued a legal notice to WhatsApp, expressing apprehensions that the usernames feature could lead to an increase in online fraud, phishing, digital arrest scams, and impersonation by allowing users to communicate without sharing their phone numbers.
According to the notice, the government has sought WhatsApp's response within three days and has asked that the rollout of the feature in India be paused until the concerns are adequately addressed.
The usernames feature, announced globally by WhatsApp on June 29, allows users to create a unique handle that can be shared instead of their mobile number.
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Similar to usernames on social media platforms, the feature is aimed at enhancing user privacy by enabling people to connect without revealing their phone numbers.
India is WhatsApp's largest market, with over 850 million users out of the platform's more than 3 billion users worldwide.
The feature is currently in the reservation phase, allowing users to claim their preferred usernames. However, messaging through usernames has not yet been enabled, with a broader rollout expected gradually through the remainder of 2026.
WhatsApp has described the feature as a privacy-focused upgrade. According to the company, there will be no public directory or searchable list of usernames, and users will only be able to receive messages from people who already know their exact username.
The government's concerns come amid a sharp rise in cybercrime across the country. According to data from the Press Information Bureau (PIB), cybercrime cases more than doubled between 2022 and 2024, increasing from around 10.29 lakh to 22.68 lakh cases. Authorities have also flagged a surge in so-called "digital arrest" scams, where fraudsters impersonate police, CBI or other government officials to extort money from victims.
This is not the first instance of the government intervening in the functioning of a digital platform. In June, authorities temporarily restricted certain Telegram features during the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination period and directed the platform to disable its message editing functionality until June 30 as part of efforts to curb the spread of misinformation.
The latest move also raises questions over intermediary responsibility and whether the usernames feature could affect the legal protections available to online platforms if it facilitates anonymous abuse.
The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), a digital rights advocacy group, criticised the government's move, describing it as regulatory overreach and arguing that there is no clear legal basis for halting the rollout of a product feature through such a notice.
WhatsApp, meanwhile, has defended the feature, stating that every account will still require a verified phone number to register on the platform and that it has built several safeguards to prevent abuse.
According to Meta, usernames resembling high-profile public figures or brands will be reserved to prevent impersonation. Newly created accounts will face limits on messaging large numbers of unknown users, repeated attempts to guess usernames will be restricted, and recipients of first-time messages will receive contextual information such as whether the sender is a new account, shares any mutual groups, or is messaging from another country.
Cybersecurity experts note that while removing phone numbers from everyday interactions could improve privacy, it may also make impersonation attempts more convincing if adequate safeguards are not in place.
Others argue that scams already occur using phone numbers and that the effectiveness of the feature will ultimately depend on how well Meta enforces its anti-abuse measures at scale.
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For now, the usernames feature remains unavailable for messaging in India.
Users can reserve their preferred handles, but the functionality will not become operational until the rollout proceeds following discussions between WhatsApp and the government.
Ends.
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