How To Use The New Fingerprint/Face Unlock Feature In Whatsapp

The last update of Whatsapp got uploaded on the Google Play Store on October 28th, 2019. That update had a cool new feature for the users of the application. For Android users, the fingerprint-unlock feature is now available in Whatsapp. It works just like it does in iPhones prior to iPhone X. The face-unlock feature was first introduced by Apple in iPhone X and hence, the face-unlock feature for Whatsapp only works in iPhone X and the models that followed after that.

This feature is very beneficial for those people who conduct their business or discuss some confidential things on Whatsapp. The end-to-end encryption is an amazing thing in itself, but this is just another level of security for you. According to an article posted on thenextweb.com, “It’s quite possible that you live in a house with a lot of kids who often snatch your phone to play games and watch videos. That’s probably fine by you, but you might not want them to peek into your WhatsApp chats”.

This feature got introduced first for Apple users in February 2019 and now it is available for Android users as well. Here’s how the feature works on various devices:

Android

  • Open Whatsapp
  • Follow: Settings>Account>Privacy>Fingerprint Lock
  • Turn the feature on

You’ll get an option to set the duration after which the lock will get activated, i.e after how much time of closing Whatsapp will the lock get activated. In Android, you can set this to immediately, after 1 minute, or after 30 minutes.

iOS (Prior To iPhone X)

  • Open Whatsapp
  • Follow: Settings>Account>Privacy>Screen Lock
  • Turn On Require Touch ID
iOS (iPhone X And Afterwards)
  • Open Whatsapp
  • Follow: Settings>Account>Privacy>Screen Lock
  • Turn On Require Face ID

Just like in Android, You’ll get an option to set the duration after which the lock will get activated in iOS as well. The difference here is the options. In iOS, you can set it to immediately, after 1 minute, after 15 minutes, or after 1 hour. Although ‘immediately’ is a recommendation, but you can choose between the various options according to your convenience.

What do you think about these new features in Whatsapp? Do you believe them to be useful? Feel free to let us know your thoughts in the comments below.