WhatsApp usernames are already raising impersonation red flags
Key takeaways
- Whats App this week started rolling out username reservations ahead of the broader launch planned later this year.
- The rollout marks a shift in how people identify one another on Whats App.
- These reference Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bollywood actors Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan, billionaire Mukesh Ambani s telecom company Jio, and the Reserve Bank of India, respectively.
Whats App this week started rolling out username reservations ahead of the broader launch planned later this year. The feature — which lets people find and message each other by handle instead of phone number — is already raising impersonation concerns, drawing scrutiny from security experts and regulators in India, the app s largest market, with more than 500 million users.
The rollout marks a shift in how people identify one another on Whats App. Instead of relying on phone numbers as the primary identifier, users will increasingly interact through platform-managed usernames, a change that Meta says improves privacy but that critics argue could create new opportunities for impersonation.
In early testing, TechCrunch found usernames resembling prominent politicians, celebrities, business figures, and public institutions — including indiamodi , shahrukh.actor , teamamitabh , ambanijio , and rbi_verify — were still available to reserve. These reference Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bollywood actors Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan, billionaire Mukesh Ambani s telecom company Jio, and the Reserve Bank of India, respectively. Separately, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said on X that he couldn t reserve cz_binance, the handle he already uses on that platform.