WhatsApp users can now hide their phone number from others in communities

WhatsApp recently launched an updated interface for the communities tab. The instant messaging app has introduced another feature to safeguard user privacy within its communities. With the new feature, users can now hide their phone numbers from other participants in communities.

WhatsApp Phone Number Privacy Feature

WhatsApp has finally rolled out the privacy feature after months of testing. The feature will keep community members’ phone numbers remain hidden from other participants. The participant’s list is already concealed within the community announcement group. However, they were not allowed to interact with the group through message reactions without revealing their phone numbers. The new privacy feature will now allow users to add reactions to messages while keeping their phone numbers hidden.

The new feature will be visible in the community announcement group info.

Users can enable the phone number privacy option to hide their phone number from others in the communities.

Upon enabling the feature, the user will be alerted that their phone numbers will only be visible to community administrators and people who have saved them as contacts

It is important to note that this feature applies exclusively to community members, and the phone number of the community administrator remains visible.

The addition of the new phone number privacy feature helps user to keep their privacy. Community members can now interact with the community announcement group without revealing their full phone numbers, such as when adding a reaction to a message. Although some users already had the ability to react to messages within the community, this new feature expands that functionality. Furthermore, WhatsApp plans to extend the phone number privacy feature to other groups in the future. If a user privately contacts a community member with a hidden phone number, they will have the option to send a request to share their phone number.

The phone number privacy feature is currently available to beta testers who have installed the latest WhatsApp update on Android and iOS devices. It will be gradually rolled out to more users in the coming days. Additionally, WhatsApp is actively working on other features, including sticker suggestion, a convenient chat list filter, and high-quality video sharing, as part of its ongoing commitment to enhancing the user experience.