New Delhi has warned of cybersecurity risks, while Meta says it has built guardrails against username abuse
India has raised concerns over the roll-out of usernames by messaging app WhatsApp, calling it a potential cybersecurity risk.
In a notice to Meta, which owns WhatsApp, New Delhi said on Wednesday that the username feature could increase “online scams, phishing, digital arrest scams and impersonation.”
The government is concerned that internet fraudsters could adopt usernames that closely resemble those of real people or institutions, and use them to impersonate individuals, public authorities, financial institutions, and government agencies.
WhatsApp said on Monday that usernames will be a “major privacy feature” that will help users connect to new people “without giving away your phone numbers.”
It has three days to reply to the notice or face regulatory action. The username roll-out is also barred until the company’s consultations with the government are concluded.
Meta said in a report in March that India is second only to the US among countries most targeted by online scammers – validating New Delhi’s concerns.
In response to the notice, Meta said it has multiple layers of guardrails against the misuse of the username feature.
“Users still require a phone number to use WhatsApp, and we’ve built multiple layers of defense against scams into usernames,” a CNBC report quoted a Meta official as saying.
The tech platform also said it intends to limit the number of new people a user account is entitled to contact, block repeated bids to guess usernames, and detect activity that demonstrates patterns linked to impersonation.
This comes days after India temporarily banned the Telegram app, claiming it was a key facilitator in an exam fraud that affected millions of students.
New Delhi also expressed concern with Telegram’s privacy features, which allow users to interact without needing to reveal a phone number, making identity detection difficult.
India has more than 500 million WhatsApp users, and is the top messaging platform in the country of 1.4 billion. India is Telegram’s largest global market, with around 150 million downloads.
Telegram founder and Russian-born tech billionaire Pavel Durov accused Indian multinational conglomerate Reliance, without providing evidence, of a “lobbying effort” to get the app restricted in India last month. Meta has around a 10% stake in Jio Platforms, a unit of Reliance Industries.
The combined user base of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram in India is more than 1 billion, making it a top market for Meta. Cybersecurity incidents have doubled in the country, where an estimated 86% of households are connected to the internet, to more than 2 million in 2024 since 2022.
WhatsApp says it banned more than 7 million Indian accounts in May alone.
