Now, lock WhatsApp for Android with your fingerprint: Here's how
What's the story
Often, WhatsApp users fear the possibility of friends, family members reading their personal messages. They resort to tackling the problem with third-party app lockers, but now, in a major move, the messaging giant has started offering its own native solution. It is beta-testing fingerprint-based locking for the messaging app's Android version. Here's all you need to know about it.
Feature
Fingerprint-based authentication for WhatsApp
Just recently, popular WhatsApp tipster WABetaInfo reported on the launch of biometric authentication in the Android beta of the messaging service. The feature, according to the tipster, will lock the messaging app after a pre-defined period of time and require the user to authenticate with the registered fingerprint. This will ultimately block unauthorized users from accessing the app and protect your personal chats.
Working
How to use the feature
If you're running the latest Android beta of WhatsApp, head over to WhatsApp Settings > Account > Privacy > Fingerprint Lock to enable the lock. The app will verify your fingerprint and provide three timing options - Immediately, After 1 minute, and After 30 minutes - to choose how frequently you want the lock to come into effect.
Information
'Immediately' option not recommended to use
Beta testers of the feature are not recommended to use the 'immediately' option as it will prompt the messaging app to ask for fingerprint every time you open WhatsApp. Going for 1 minute or 30 minutes is better and less annoying than that.
Advantage
It also lets you customize notification preview settings for messages
WABetaInfo also notes that the feature won't stop you from seeing and replying to messages directly from the notification shade. Specifically, the fingerprint lock setting offers a toggle to let you choose whether to enable or disable message content previews in notifications. This would come very handy in protecting your private conversations when the lock is enabled.
Availability
When stable version will get this capability
Biometric authentication being tested in WhatsApp's Android beta version 2.19.221. You can try the feature right away but do note that it requires a phone running Android Marshmallow or newer and there's no word on when it might come in a stable release. Notably, the iOS version of the messaging service has already received the capability as part of a stable release.