WhatsApp now allows iOS users to lock their app using TouchID or FaceID. This is big news for iPhone users worldwide considering there isn’t any proper way to lock applications on iOS. Android beats iOS in this regard with it having third-party apps that do the job perfectly. Although this is only available on WhatsApp (v. 2.19.20), more apps are expected to follow suit.
Previously, if you ever felt the need to protect your apps, you had to rely on the screen lock. If your phone was with a friend, unlocked, you could only hope that they wouldn’t open that particular app you were hiding. Times were rough, folks but no more. At least in WhatsApp’s case.
To enable this new feature, you need to:
- Open WhatsApp.
- Go to Settings>Account Settings>Privacy>Screen Lock.
- Toggle on Require Face ID/Require Touch ID and select Immediately.
There you have it! You have now locked your WhatsApp and can give your phone to anyone with the surety that whatever you were hiding will remain hidden. However, it is to note that this won’t hide the contents of incoming messages from your notifications. In fact, someone can even reply to your messages from the notifications. To cater to that, you need to turn off message previews. To do that:
- Open WhatsApp
- Go to Settings>Notifications.
- Toggle off Show Preview.
That would solve the problem on anyone reading your messages via notifications. Other things to note are that this layer of security won’t prevent anyone from picking up WhatsApp calls. Also, this feature does not lock each chat individually. So if someone gets hold of your phone while the app is open, there’s no way to prevent them from opening the chats. Except maybe snatching it back.
Currently, this is only available on the iOS version of WhatsApp. However, reports by WABetaInfo suggest that this feature may be coming to Android as well.