WhatsApp has just changed something that has stayed the same since the app began. For more than a decade, your phone number was your identity on the platform. That is no longer the only option. And not everyone is celebrating the change.
The Meta-owned messaging service announced this week that users can now reserve a username, ahead of a wider rollout planned over the coming months. Once the feature is active, anyone who sets up a username will no longer need to reveal their phone number when contacting someone for the first time. Instead, people can connect using a chosen name, similar to how usernames work on other platforms.
Kunal Shah, who recently took over leading WhatsApp, announced the move himself on social media. He told users to “get yours,” describing the change as a more private way to connect. The early reservation window exists because, with more than three billion people using the app worldwide, many of the names people want are likely to overlap. Reserving early means a better chance of securing the one you actually want.
WhatsApp explained its thinking in a blog post. The company said that when someone new comes into your life, a classmate, a neighbour, someone met at an event, sharing a phone number can feel like a significant step. A phone number is personal. It connects to many other parts of a person’s life. Sometimes, the company said, people simply want to chat without handing over that information.
There are strict rules around how usernames can be formed. They must be between three and 35 characters long, must include at least one letter, and can only use lowercase letters, numbers, periods and underscores. Usernames cannot start with “www.” or end in common internet domain endings like “.com” or “.net”. That restriction appears designed specifically to prevent people from creating usernames that mimic real websites, a common trick used in online scams.
WhatsApp has also built in a feature it calls a username key, an additional layer of protection that adds further security on top of the basic username system. The company has stressed that there is no public directory of usernames and no suggestion feature showing who else uses the app. To contact someone by username, you need to already know their exact username. Nobody can simply search and stumble across you.
As Storyboard18 reported in its coverage of the rollout, the reaction online has been sharply divided. Many users welcomed the change as a meaningful upgrade, finally giving WhatsApp something its closest rivals, including Telegram and Signal, have offered for years. Others reacted with concern, warning that the feature could open new doors for impersonation and fraud. One widely shared sentiment online summed up the worry directly: this will increase scams.
The concern is not difficult to understand. Phone numbers, for all their privacy drawbacks, carry a built in layer of friction. Getting a new number requires identification in most countries, and numbers are tied to a person in ways that make impersonation harder. A username, by contrast, can be created and abandoned far more easily. Scammers who previously needed a working phone number to set up a fraudulent account may find it simpler to create convincing fake identities using usernames designed to closely resemble those of real businesses, banks or public figures.
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WhatsApp’s restrictions on what usernames can look like are partly aimed at this exact risk. Preventing names that mimic web addresses is one safeguard. The absence of a public directory is another, since it stops scammers from harvesting large numbers of usernames to target at random. Whether these measures will be enough remains to be tested once the feature is in wider use.
The change arrives at a moment when WhatsApp is expanding well beyond its original purpose as a simple messaging tool. The platform increasingly supports business communication, payments and large community groups, all of which rely on people exchanging contact details with others they have never met in person. In those settings, a phone number has always felt like an oddly intimate thing to hand over. Usernames offer a layer of distance that many users in those contexts have wanted for a long time.
For now, the rollout remains limited. Users can reserve a username inside the app’s settings menu, under Account, then Username, but the feature will only become fully usable gradually, country by country, with users notified inside the app once it goes live where they are. WhatsApp has not given a firm date for full global availability.
What is clear is that a platform built around the certainty of a phone number is now offering its users a choice. Whether that choice turns out to be the privacy upgrade WhatsApp promises, or a new opening for the kind of scams users are already worried about, will likely become apparent only once the feature reaches everyone.
About the Author
Marcel Chidozie is a tech analyst and writer covering foreign news, fintech, and emerging technologies at TechRegard. Based in Nigeria, He's passionate about translating complex tech developments into compelling, accessible stories for diverse audiences. His work focuses on how technology shapes innovation across Africa and globally.
