On Tuesday WhatsApp announced it is rolling out a new “View Once” feature for photos and videos that disappear once a chat has been opened or viewed, to give users more control over their privacy.
WhatsApp rolls out ‘View Once’ feature
According to an article from June by The Verge, Mark Zuckerberg had said that the new feature was still in beta. In 2020, WhatsApp introduced the “disappearing messages” feature in which a user can choose to turn it on and the messages can disappear after 7 days.
WhatsApp said that this feature will help you in terms of privacy. In cases where you might have sent a sensitive photo and might not want to see it again, this feature might help.
Just like all messages on WhatsApp, “View Once” photos and videos will also be protected by end-to-end encryption so that WhatsApp cannot see them.
To avoid confusion about what the conversation was about, the message will be marked “opened”. The feature will be available to everyone this week.
More information about the ‘View Once’ feature
With this new feature, you won’t have Media cluttered in your gallery anymore. The opened photos and videos won’t be saved from your phone and you will not be able to view them ever again.
You cannot forward, share, or star photos and videos that were sent or received while the “View Once” was enabled. If a person’s read receipts are off, you cannot see if they have opened or viewed the “View Once” media.
If you don’t open the photo or video after 14 days of it being sent, it will expire. However, “View Once” media can be restored from backup if the message is unopened at the time of backup and if the media was opened before backup began, it will not be restored.
Is this feature completely safe?
The answer is, no. WhatsApp urged users to send “View Once” media to only trusted individuals because having this feature enabled doesn’t mean that your private information (photos and videos) are completely safe. The person you send the media to can still take a screenshot of the media.
Another thing, you won’t be notified when a person takes a screenshot or makes a screen recording of the conversation. And other people might even take a photo of the photo or video with another device before it disappears.
WhatsApp will only be able to see the media once a recipient reports it. Otherwise, as mentioned before, all the messages are protected by end-to-end encryption.
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