California (Web Desk): WhatsApp has started rolling out its new Scam Alert feature to some Android beta users, in a move aimed at helping people identify potentially fraudulent messages.
Reports about the development of the feature first emerged in June, while Meta officially shared details about it two weeks ago. Although WhatsApp has not yet announced when the feature will be available to the general public, its arrival for beta testers suggests that a wider rollout could be approaching.
The development was reported by WABetaInfo, which spotted the feature in WhatsApp Beta for Android version 2.26.34.1.
As its name suggests, Scam Alert is designed to warn users when an incoming message from an unknown person appears to be potentially fraudulent or part of a scam. Importantly, the sender will not be notified that the recipient has the Scam Alert feature enabled.
When a scam warning appears, users can choose to mark the sender as Trusted, or block and report the account. If a user marks a conversation as trusted,
WhatsApp may also give them the option to share the last five messages from that chat with the company to help improve the feature's accuracy.
The feature is optional and must currently be enabled manually. On Android devices, users can activate it by going to Settings > Account.
Meta has described Scam Alert in an official blog post as a new optional feature that uses an on-device machine learning model to identify potentially scam-related messages and alert users.
According to Meta, message content is not sent off the device for scam classification, nor is it automatically reported to WhatsApp, Meta or any other organisation.
The company says the feature is designed to work alongside end-to-end encryption, providing users with an additional layer of protection against potential fraud while remaining entirely optional.