WhatsApp is rolling out a new scam prevention tool, it announced on Tuesday. This feature, dubbed Safety Overview, works when someone, who is not saved in your contacts, adds you to a WhatsApp group. The Meta-owned messaging app will provide key information about the group, along with tips to stay safe from phishing and scams. As part of its ongoing efforts to protect its users from scams, it detected and banned more than 6.8 million accounts linked to scam centres.
Safety Overview on WhatsApp
In a newsroom post, Meta announced the new Safety Overview tool for WhatsApp. It shows up when an unknown person adds you to a WhatsApp group that you do not recognise. The tool will display information about the person who added you to the group, total number of members, group creator, and creation date.
From here, you can review the information and decide if you wish to stay or leave the group. If you think you recognise the group from the Safety Overview information, you can have a look at the chats for more details. However, if you wish to leave, then WhatsApp will allow you to exit the group without having to peek over any of the messages in the chat, as per Meta.
In both cases, notifications from the group will be silenced until you tick a check mark which states that you wish to stay in the WhatsApp group.
For individual chats, the Meta-owned instant messaging platform is currently testing a new way to caution the user whenever they start a new chat with someone who is not added in their contacts list. It will display additional context about the user to help make an informed decision.
It is part of WhatsApp’s efforts to protect its user base from scams. The company announced that it banned more than 6.8 lakh accounts which were linked to scam centres. Further, WhatsApp partnered with its parent company Meta and Sam Altman’s OpenAI to disrupt scam efforts and link them to a scam centre in Cambodia.
The accused used ChatGPT to run various scams, from offering payments for fake likes and luring people into cryptocurrency investment to a rent-a-scooter pyramid scheme.
