India's IT ministry directed Meta on July 1, 2026, to halt the rollout of WhatsApp's new username feature in India and provide justification within three days [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. The username feature would allow users to reserve unique usernames and message others without sharing phone numbers [1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 5].
India is WhatsApp’s largest market, with over 500 million users in the country out of a global base around 3 billion [2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 5]. The government expressed concerns that the feature could increase risks of online fraud, phishing, scams, digital arrest scams, and impersonation attacks [1, 2, 3, 9, 4, 6, 7, 5]. A senior Indian official said, "Bad actors could steal usernames and impersonate others to send messages. This is a huge challenge for those who lack the technical knowledge to identify scams" [7].
Meta maintains the username feature is designed to enhance privacy and has multiple safeguards. A WhatsApp spokesperson said, "Other users need to know the exact username to message you, we will limit how many new people an account can contact, block repeated attempts to guess someone’s username, and have systems to detect and remove activity showing common impersonation and abuse patterns" [1]. A Meta spokesperson added, "Users still require a phone number to use WhatsApp, and we've built multiple layers of defense against scams into usernames" [6].
The rollout has not yet gone live in India but is planned for later in 2026 with a slow introduction [1, 3, 6, 7]. India has taken similar actions against other messaging apps with username or anonymity features. In June 2026, the government temporarily blocked Telegram and issued notices to Telegram and Signal in early July over related concerns [2, 3, 9, 4].
Cybercrime cases in India more than doubled from 1 million in 2022 to nearly 2.3 million in 2024, with losses due to online scams expected to reach about $3 billion by 2025 [6, 7, 8]. Reema Bhattacharya, head of Asia research at Verisk Maplecroft, said, "The sharp rise in cyber-enabled financial crime has undoubtedly shifted the center of gravity towards security" [6].
Digital rights groups criticized the government’s notices as too broad. The Internet Freedom Foundation said, "This is a dragnet, it is widening, and it has no basis in law" [9].
The IT ministry’s three-day deadline for Meta to justify the WhatsApp username feature rollout in India is set to expire July 4, 2026 [1, 5].
