Privacy seems to be the focal point of discussion at Apple. After the App Tracking Transparency feature, Apple is further pushing for user privacy and security for selected apps. Now, WhatsApp has joined in with a privacy-centric feature for iOS users. WhatsApp for iOS is working on a disappearing mode that could rollout in the coming weeks.
The tip comes from WABetaInfo, which gave us the first look at the WhatsApp disappearing mode on the iPhone. The feature isn't available for the public yet and seems to be in beta testing. The report notes that users can enable disappearing mode and new chats will begin with disappearing messages.
"Today we're announcing the feature called Disappearing Mode! If you love privacy, disappearing messages is the feature for you. You can enable it within Contact Info and Group Info, but it can happen that you have to manually enable it when a contact starts a new chat with you," the report mentions.
As the name suggests, the WhatsApp disappearing mode will erase new messages after a while when toggled on. This feature will enable chat history to be erased after the user reads the message. The Facebook-owned claims this is the company's new take on privacy, where a similar feature is already available on Instagram.
Once the feature is available for the public, iPhone users will need to open WhatsApp > Settings > Privacy > and switch on the Disappearing Mode function. All new messages after the settings have been changed will appear as disappearing ones. It's unclear how it would appear for Android users at the moment.
Facebook has received a lot of backlash for target advertisements and mishandling of user data. The new WhatsApp disappearing mode for iPhone comes at a time where the company is under scrutiny for its privacy policy update. Previously, WhatsApp said users would lose their account if the new policy wasn't accepted by May 15.
Although users won't be losing their WhatsApp account for not accepting the policy, reports reveal some of WhatsApp functions and abilities will start vanishing. In this scenario, the WhatsApp disappearing mode comes in to save some grace, but is it enough?