July 16, 2021: WhatsApp is testing a new feature that will allow people to message without using their phone for the first time.

WhatsApp is currently connected to a user’s phone. Its desktop and web apps need to be connected to this device and receive messages. But the new feature allows users to send and receive messages “even if your phone has run out of battery”. WhatsApp said four other devices, such as PCs and tablets, can be used together.

To begin with, the new feature will be implemented as a beta test of “small groups of users”, and the team intends to improve its performance and add features before enabling it for everyone.

End-to-end encryption – a key selling point for WhatsApp – will still work under this new system, it said.

Many other rival messaging apps already have this feature, including competitor app Signal, which require a phone to sign up, but not exchange messages. But the feature has long been requested by WhatsApp users who now stand at two billion.

Announcing the move, Facebook engineers said in a blog post that the change would require a “reconsideration” of WhatsApp’s software design. This is because the current version “uses a smartphone app as the primary device, and makes the phone a source for all user data and is the only user to initiate a call [or] for another user. The device is able to encrypt messages from end to end “, the company said. WhatsApp Web and other non-smartphone apps are basically a “mirror” of what happens on the phone.

But there are significant flaws in this system that many regular users are aware of, as the web app is often known to disconnect.

It also means that only one so-called “companion app” can be active at a time – so loading WhatsApp on another device will disconnect a WhatsApp web window.

“The new WhatsApp multi-device architecture removes these hurdles, no longer requiring a smartphone to be the source of truth, while still keeping user data seamlessly and securely synchronised and private,” the company said.

Technically, the solution was giving each device its own “identity key,” and WhatsApp keeps track of which users’ accounts belong. This means that it does not need to store messages on its server, which can lead to privacy concerns.

But Jake Moore, a security specialist at anti-virus-company Eset, said that no matter how robust the security is, having messages on more devices could still be a concern. “There will always be a malicious actor who wants to create workaround,” he said.

“Domestic abusers and stalkers may have the ability to use this new feature to their advantage by creating an additional point to control any synchronised private communication.” He also said that social engineering is a “growing” threat, and that it is the responsibility of the user to monitor potential misuse.

“So it’s very important that people are familiar with all the devices connected to these accounts,” he warned.

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