ISLAMABAD – The world’s most popular messaging service, WhatsApp, isfinally adding a fingerprint unlock feature to its Android app. The featurewas announced in a post on WhatsApp’s blog yesterday, and will startrolling out in the app’s latest update on the Google Play Store.
The update will slowly become available in all regions, rolling out in aselect few as of right now. The feature was introduced on iOS in Februaryand included support for both Touch ID and FaceID to secure messages.
And now, after 8 months, the feature, or at least the fingerprint part, iscoming to Android devices. The lack of face unlock support might be down tothe fact that most Android phones use an unreliable 2-D face unlock setup.This isn’t secure enough to be used in security applications and is mostlyjust a gimmick.
The feature allows users to hide their messages and other information suchas logs behind secure biometric authentications. Fingerprint unlock will besupported on all Android phones with a fingerprint sensor.
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Android users can start using the facility by updating their WhatsApp appfrom the Play Store and enabling fingerprint lock by tapping *Settings >Account > Privacy > Fingerprint lock* and turning the *Unlock withFingerprint *switch to the on position.
The app will ask the user for their fingerprint and then the feature willbe enabled. Users can also decide between three options on how quickly theywant their messages to be locked after they leave the app, includingimmediately, after 1 minute and after 30 minutes.
