WhatsApp has now decided to finally build support for Android for additional locking, this lock will use the fingerprint scanner on a smartphone – fortunately, such a scanner is nowadays on almost every smartphone, also the phone should at least run on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, according to WaBetaInfo.

— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) January 8, 2019 WaBetaInfo reports in a tweet that an unlocking option with a fingerprint scanner has appeared in WhatsApp for Android. This feature has been available for iOS for some time but has been absent for Android to date. It seems that the developers are not quite ready yet, WaBetaInfo says they have seen the function in version 2.19.3. This version can only be downloaded in the beta channel, although the function seems to have not yet appeared to me. You can not do much at the time of writing; if you click on the function you will see a pop-up to confirm that you actually want to enable WhatsApp to unlock with your fingerprint. Registering your fingerprint does not seem to work yet.

Small update in 2.19.1

Since the Christmas holiday has only just ended, there seems to be a lot of changes to the beta version of WhatsApp for Android. The first beta update that appeared last week gives a new design to the page for sending audio files to a specific group. Furthermore, no other functions seem to be added that are not yet available outside the beta channel. If you want to join the WhatsApp beta channel, navigate to the WhatsApp product page in the Google Play Store – you can sign up with a click. Mind you, the beta version of the application is not always stable, there is a chance that there are bugs when using the app.

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