Ever since WhatsApp launched WhatsApp Web, several malicious actors have managed to access one’s personal WhatsApp chats by using the WhatsApp web feature. Although WhatsApp shows a notification when there is an active WhatsApp web session, some users may not notice it. With this fingerprint authentication method, users can rest assured that their WhatsApp Web will not be compromised in case their phone is with others for a brief period. According to WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is still working on this and has not enabled it to all users. WABetaInfo spotted the feature in beta version 2.20.200.10 on Android. In other words, you may not see the option to verify new WhatsApp Web instances with your fingerprint in the latest WhatsApp beta. Once the feature is made available to users however, creating a new WhatsApp Web session will require that you authenticate using your fingerprint on your smartphone. Hopefully the feature will work with facial recognition as well, for smartphones like the iPhone, where fingerprint scanners are not available. Image: WABetaInfo Apart from this, the update comes with a few bug fixes. To be specific, the update fixes the bug related to the ‘Recently Used Emojis’ section. For those unaware, with previous WhatsApp betas, WhatsApp automatically removed recent emojis whenever the user updated WhatsApp. This was obviously quite inconvenient for users and it is good to see that the company has fixed it. In my case, I never noticed this was happening until now. The latest WhatsApp beta is currently being rolled out through Google Play Store.

WhatsApp to Add Fingerprint Authentication for WhatsApp Web - 42