Names without numbers: India must set the terms

On June 29, Meta began rolling out usernames on WhatsApp — handles that let anyone be found and messaged without sharing a phone number. Within forty-eight hours, the government ordered Meta to hold the rollout in India and explain itself within three days.

- RAJEEV CHANDRASEKHAR

That was the right call, and I support it. Six hundred million Indians live a large part of their lives on this one app. When the platform that carries their conversations decides overnight to change what identity itself means on that platform, India does not get informed as a courtesy. India gets consulted first.

But a pause is not a policy. What matters now is what we do with these three days — and the weeks after and how we regulate WhatsApp in India. So let me say clearly what I believe this feature is, what it is not, and what the government must demand before a single username goes live in India.

What Meta has actually done

Strip away the product language and the change is simple. For 17 years, your WhatsApp identity was your phone number — an identifier issued under Indian regulation, portable across operators, usable on any rival app. From this week, your identity can be a handle — issued by Meta, controlled by Meta, and meaningless anywhere outside Meta’s walls.

Two facts should frame every conversation the government has with Meta. First, the phone number does not disappear. It is still mandatory to register, and it stays on Meta’s servers. So nobody should be misled into thinking this is anonymity — it is not, and our agencies’ lawful access through due process remains intact.

Second, for the millions of Indian businesses that live on WhatsApp, Meta is replacing the customer’s phone number with a new identifier that Meta generates, scopes and controls. The Kirana store, the boutique, the bank, our growing D2C brands and small and micro businesses — each will know its customers only through a code that works exclusively inside Meta’s ecosystem, on Meta’s terms.

Government’s first concern is the Indian user

I have long argued that the internet must be safe and trusted for every digital nagrik — and safety is exactly where this feature, launched carelessly, will fail first.