Lock conversations on WhatsApp: Most people are keen to keep their phones out of the hands of abusers to maintain data privacy, such as photos, videos, text messages, emails, and private conversations. Phone systems currently allow acceptable degrees of privacy by providing several ways to lock the phone, such as using passwords or biometric authentication, such as fingerprints and face prints. This led many users to get used to leaving their accounts in various applications, such as social networking applications, open instead of logging out of them before leaving the phone every time, which is a risk that could threaten the security of their data and the privacy of their conversations if a snoopers access the password used. To lock the phone or be able to unlock it by any means
Based on the preceding, some applications have added new features to provide more protection and privacy to their user accounts, such as “WhatsApp,” which already allows logging into accounts using fingerprints and face prints. In the latest update to the version for Android phones, the application also made available a new feature that allows users to lock individual conversations to maintain the privacy of specific discussions and keep them hidden and protected from curious and tampering hands instead of logging out of the entire WhatsApp account when leaving the phone every time. In the following lines, we explain how to use this feature.
Chat Lock
The WhatsApp application, within the latest update to its version for Android phones, introduced the “Chat Lock” feature, which allows the use of a fingerprint or face to lock any of its private conversations with other individuals, not group conversations, which may include personal or confidential data and information that it does not want to see. Others. Therefore, if you are using an Android phone, you can update the application now through the Play Store to try the feature after its official arrival to all users.
Locking individual conversations in WhatsApp also makes them hide and not appear in the chats that appear once you open the app. Also, photos, videos, or audio sent in locked talks will not be automatically saved to the device gallery. Because locking individual conversations in WhatsApp prevents receiving notifications from them or mutes their sounds, these notifications will not be opened without accessing the application and authenticating using a fingerprint or face to open new messages received in locked conversations.
The feature of archiving chats in WhatsApp performed a similar function, as some conversations disappeared and prevented them from appearing in the list of exchanges when opening the application. However, it is still possible to open archived discussions and view their content easily without requiring authentication to verify identity. But in the case of locking conversations, there is an additional layer of security besides hiding the conversation and preventing it from appearing in the list of discussions, as it becomes impossible to open and view any locked conversation without entering the fingerprint or face.
Lock conversations in the WhatsApp application
After making sure that the latest version of WhatsApp is installed on your Android phone, launch the application and go to the “Chats” section at the top of the application screen, then go to the conversation or chat that we want to lock, long press on it to select it, then press the menu button ( ⁝ ) at the top and choose “View contact” to display a page with information about the other contact. By scrolling down, we can find the “Chat Lock” option, so click on it.
On the next page, enable the “Lock this chat with fingerprint” option to turn it on. Now it will ask you to enter your fingerprint. After completing all the previous steps, it will tell you that the conversation has become protected and cannot be opened or viewed until after verifying the fingerprint.
Note that if you are logging into your WhatsApp account on more than one device or more than one phone, locking any individual conversation in your WhatsApp account on one phone or device will not close the same discussion in the same history on another device, which means you will have to To repeat the same previous steps on all devices that you use to access your WhatsApp account.
Another important note: it is impossible to lock individual chats if they are archived, at least for now. Therefore, to close this chat with a fingerprint or face, you must unarchive it before following the steps above. An individual WhatsApp conversation can be unarchived by scrolling down and clicking the “Archived Chats” option. After that, we select the conversation and press and hold it, then press the “up arrow” button in the options bar to unarchive the chat.
How to access locked chats on WhatsApp
Once you lock any individual conversation in WhatsApp, it will be automatically hidden from the list of discussions on the home page and moved to the “Locked Chats” section, where it can be reaccessed simply by opening the application on the phone, going to the “Chats” section at the top, then Swipe down until the “Locked chats” option appears at the top of the list.
Now we click on this option and confirm our identity by placing our finger on the fingerprint sensor in the phone, after which the locked conversations appear. Once you exit the conversation and go back or close the WhatsApp application, locked chats will automatically return to being hidden as they were, and we will have to enter the fingerprint or face again when trying to unlock them again.
How to unlock individual chats on WhatsApp
Suppose we no longer want to lock a WhatsApp conversation. In that case, we can unlock any conversation by opening the application and going to the Locked Chats section described in the previous paragraph. After that, we click on the “Locked Chats” option, then select from the list the conversation we want to unprotect, and here we will have to enter the fingerprint to open the locked chat.
After opening the conversation, we click on the name or number of the contact that refers to the other party to the discussion and appears at the top of the conversation screen. We connect the “Chat Lock” option to the “Lock this chat with a fingerprint” option. Chat with your fingerprint, then press the corresponding activation button to disable it. Now you will have to enter your fingerprint again as a final step to confirm that the chat is unlocked.
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