NEW DELHI: India has asked WhatsApp to justify the implementation of a planned feature covering usernames and to freeze the rollout in its biggest market, escalating a crackdown on messaging anonymity that began with Telegram, according to a government letter reviewed by Reuters.
Earlier this week, Meta's WhatsApp said it had begun a phased global rollout, including in India, of the feature, which lets users reserve a unique username and eventually message others without sharing their phone numbers.
The July 1 letter gave WhatsApp three days to respond and barred the rollout until its consultations with the government concluded.
Anonymity was among the concerns India cited when it temporarily blocked the messaging app Telegram last month.
The intervention is an escalation of India's policing of online platforms, coming weeks after it blocked Telegram and following years of run-ins with Elon Musk's X over content-takedown orders.
India is WhatsApp's biggest market with more than 500 million users, and the standoff forces the platform to weigh compliance against mounting concerns about expanding government control of social media.
India's IT ministry said the feature could materially increase online fraud, phishing, digital arrest scams and impersonation attacks by allowing bad actors to contact victims without disclosing their phone numbers.
"We've announced the option for people to reserve their preferred username on WhatsApp," a Meta spokesperson said, adding that the feature was not yet live and the company had reserved usernames for public figures, government entities and verified Meta accounts to help prevent impersonation.
The notice comes weeks after India scrutinised Telegram over features that let users interact without disclosing their numbers. It also comes after a June home ministry report, reviewed by Reuters, warned that such privacy tools make identity detection more difficult and flagged the app's use in cyber fraud.
Telegram lost a legal challenge last month against the temporary ban. (Reporting by Rajesh Kr. Singh, Munsif Vengattil, Aditya Kalra and Aftab Ahmed; Editing by Maju Samuel and Thomas Derpinghaus)
