Meta-owned highly popular chat messaging app, WhatsApp is said to be bringing a new privacy update to restrict last seen and online status update from unknown contacts.
The new privacy update will help users remain more private and also limit third-party app from stalking WhatsApp users. Besides the privacy-focused update, Meta-owned WhatsApp is additionally bringing a new sticker pack named Encanto. The users can download the sticker pack from the official WhatsApp sticker store available in the app.
This development from WhatsApp was first spotted by popular WhatsApp features tracking site ‘WABetaInfo’. The tracker reported that WhatsApp is working on enhancing the privacy of its users by limiting the user details like the last seen and online status from the people who you don’t know or the people you never chatted with.
Meanwhile, WhatsApp’s privacy-focused update will not be applicable to your family, friends, and businesses you know or have messaged in the past, as quoted in the support team’s email response to a user.
Earlier this year, a cybersecurity firm ‘Traced’ released a report in which the company observed several third-party apps and services that silently stalk WhatsApp users; track when the users are online and how frequently they are using the chat messaging platform.
Even on App Store or Google Play Store, you can find some apps that can log the last seen and also the online status of some select contacts.
At present, WhatsApp just allows hiding last seen from unknown people, it doesn’t allow disabling online status.
The new privacy-focused update will help users stay private as WhatsApp will no longer show the last seen and online status if you have never chatted with another WhatsApp user. Additionally, third-party apps also are restricted from accessing your last seen and online status because you never had a chat with them.
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