We used to send hundreds and thousands of messages through WhatsApp on a daily basis. The messages can be of any genre ranging from the casual chat with our relative circles or the highly confidential conversations involving the colleagues. Though WhatsApp assures our privacy with the 256-Bit end-to-end encryption, the app never itself featured the simple native locking mechanism. Now, the lack of native app-lock feature is too being addressed with the addition of Authentication feature on the latest WhatsApp beta.
The latest WhatsApp 2.19.3 beta which is now live on Google Play Store caters a new authentication feature in which user can lock the app with their fingerprint. However, it’s in the development stage and even if you’ve updated to the latest beta it’s not necessary that you’ll see it. If available, the new add-on with the title Authentication is situated at the Settings>>Account>>Privacy of the latest Whatsapp Beta.
What it means is that enabling the fingerprint feature, the app will be completely protected, so the user will need to authenticate his identity in order to open WhatsApp (from the app icon, from the notification or from external pickers). Note that, it will protect the entire app and you cannot lock specific conversations.
The irony is that you can add only the fingerprint as the authentication method and ain’t the traditional PIN or Password. Hence, the feature is of handy if and only if your device has a fingerprint scanner and runs Android 6.0 or above. Well, you might be thinking what if the WhatsApp fails to recognize the fingerprint as it might happen in certain use case scenarios. As a backup, you can see in this screenshot, it is also possible to use your device credentials in the case of failure.
WhatsApp Beta: Google Play Store