WhatsApp, the Meta-owned messaging platform, has been consistently enhancing its security measures to protect user privacy and data. The application already uses end-to-end encryption for personal messages to keep users’ content confidential between the sender and receiver. In addition, WhatsApp has recently introduced several features to strengthen account security, including “silence unknown callers,” “chat lock,” and more. However, despite all the improvements, the platform remains a prime target for hackers, and hence, WhatsApp keeps its development team busy with creating more features.
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In line with these security developments, WhatsApp is reportedly working on a new feature that will allow users to use their email address for account verification. According to reports from Wabetainfo, WhatsApp will keep this email verification feature optional. If turned on, WhatsApp will ask for your email address to protect and verify your account.
As of now, the feature is still under development, and there is limited information available about the specific situations in which the email address will be useful to enhance the security of WhatsApp accounts. However, it could help users verify their accounts in certain unspecified situations. For instance, if a phone gets stolen or users lose access to their phone number linked with WhatsApp, the email verification will help them access and log in to their account. It can also be useful when setting up WhatsApp on a new device, but the verification code is not coming due to server or network issues.
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It’s important to note that this feature will be optional and different from the one that asks for your email address when configuring the two-step verification. As for availability, the feature is currently under development and is expected to be released in future updates of the app.
In the meantime, WhatsApp has released its monthly report for June 2023. The report highlights the grievances the platform received during the following month and how it dealt with them accordingly. According to the report, WhatsApp banned 6,611,700 accounts of Indian users between June 1 and June 30, 2023. While most of the accounts were banned after receiving reports from users, the report specifies that it proactively banned 2,434,200 accounts even before receiving any reports from users.
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Notably, WhatsApp releases its monthly users safety report every month in accordance with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. This report provides details of WhatsApp’s actions in response to various factors:
1. Grievances received from users in India through the grievance mechanisms of WhatsApp.
2. Accounts acted upon in India using WhatsApp’s prevention and detection methods due to violations of Indian laws or WhatsApp’s Terms of Service.
3. Orders received from the Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC).
