WhatsApp usernames are already raising impersonation red flags

WhatsApp this week started rolling out username reservations ahead of the broader launch planned later this year. The feature — which lets people find and message each other by handle instead of phone number — is already raising impersonation concerns, drawing scrutiny from security experts and regulators in India, the app’s largest market, with more than 500 million users.

The rollout marks a shift in how people identify one another on WhatsApp. Instead of relying on phone numbers as the primary identifier, users will increasingly interact through platform-managed usernames, a change that Meta says improves privacy but that critics argue could create new opportunities for impersonation.

In early testing, TechCrunch found usernames resembling prominent politicians, celebrities, business figures, and public institutions — including “indiamodi,” “shahrukh.actor,” “teamamitabh,” “ambanijio,” and “rbi_verify” — were still available to reserve. These reference Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bollywood actors Shah Rukh Khan, and Amitabh Bachchan, billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s telecom company Jio, and the Reserve Bank of India, respectively. Separately, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said on X that he couldn’t reserve “cz_binance,” the handle he already uses on that platform.

Asked about how it protects against impersonation, Meta told TechCrunch it reserves usernames for public figures, government entities, and “some variations” of those names so only the legitimate owner can claim them. The company did not explain, however, how it decides which lookalike usernames get proactively reserved and which don’t.

The concerns have already reached regulators in India, where cyber fraud schemes frequently exploit messaging platforms to impersonate police, banks, and government officials.

In a notice sent to WhatsApp on Wednesday and reviewed by TechCrunch, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said the feature could “materially increase the incidence of online fraud, phishing, digital arrest scams and impersonation attacks” by enabling bad actors to contact users without exposing their phone numbers.

The ministry also warned that usernames could facilitate impersonation of “individuals, public authorities, financial institutions, and government agencies” by allowing usernames closely resembling those of genuine people or organizations. It directed WhatsApp to explain why regulatory action should not be initiated under India’s IT laws and asked the company not to roll out the feature until consultations were completed.

A senior government official separately told TechCrunch that the Indian IT ministry is cognizant of the issue and is engaging with WhatsApp over the feature.