Scams on social media apps like WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram and Facebook are growing rapidly as they give cybercriminals an easy way to reach millions of people within seconds. From Digital Arrest, fake job offers and investment schemes to phishing links, users are becoming targets of online fraud.
To tackle this issue, Meta-owned popular instant messaging platform WhatsApp is reportedly working on a new feature that could help users identify suspicious messages before they fall victim to a scam.
According to details spotted by WABetaInfo in a recent WhatsApp beta update for Android, the Meta-owned app is developing a feature called Scam Alert. The feature is designed to detect potentially fraudulent messages from unknown contacts and show a warning directly inside the chat.
“Just like voice transcripts, the feature will work entirely on the user’s device, and it is fully compatible with end-to-end encryption,” the report said.
As per the Meta-owned app, Scam Alert will work entirely on the user’s device. This means messages will not be sent to WhatsApp or Meta servers for analysis. Instead, the detection process happens locally on the phone, ensuring that end-to-end encryption remains intact.
WhatsApp Will Soon Let You Log Out In Seconds Without Losing Chats
If the feature detects a suspicious message, you will see a warning saying that the message may be a scam. WhatsApp will also highlight that the sender is an unknown contact. You can then choose to block and report the sender or continue the conversation if they believe the message is safe.
The development of Scam Alert follows WhatsApp’s recent rollout of Voice Transcripts, a feature that converts voice messages into text directly on the user’s device.
WhatsApp is also working on a transparency tool that will allow users to view on-device logs showing when Scam Alert was triggered. “These reports will remain private and will not be shared with WhatsApp,” said WABetaInfo.
The company is planning to make Scam Alert an optional feature that will be turned off by default. Users who want additional protection can enable it from the app settings.
The feature is currently under development and is expected to arrive first for beta testers before rolling out to all users in a future update.
