WhatsApp has always been an app without an address book. It reads the phone’s contacts, matches the numbers to accounts, and that is the list you see; the app itself stores nothing. It is why a lost phone without a backup means starting again, why WhatsApp Web cannot add a contact, and why the number of the plumber you only ever messaged on WhatsApp ends up in your phone’s contacts whether you wanted it there or not. This week WhatsApp said it is fixing all three.
What changes
You will be able to add a contact inside WhatsApp — from the phone app, from WhatsApp Web and from the Windows app — and choose whether it is saved to WhatsApp only or to the phone as well. Contacts saved to WhatsApp are tied to your account, not the device: change phones, log in, and they are there. They do not appear in the phone’s address book, so someone with your handset does not see them, and a second account — a work number, a shop’s number — can keep a list of its own. The old way, reading the phone’s contacts, continues to work alongside.
How it is protected
Storing contacts on Meta’s servers is exactly the kind of thing WhatsApp has spent a decade saying it does not do, so the company built a system for it, Identity Proof Linked Storage, which encrypts the list with a key derived from your account and stores it in the same hardware-secured infrastructure as encrypted backups. WhatsApp says it cannot read the names or numbers. The design has been published for security researchers to check, which is the right way to make the claim.
Why it took so long
Because the phone-book model was the product. WhatsApp grew by being the app that “just worked” with the numbers you already had, and every alternative — accounts, usernames, in-app lists — looked like friction. What changed is that WhatsApp now runs on laptops, tablets and up to four linked devices, and a contact list that lives on only one of them had become the friction. The feature is also a foundation: WhatsApp has confirmed that usernames, letting people connect without sharing a phone number, are coming, and that needs somewhere to store who you know.
What to do
The feature is rolling out gradually; when it appears, the option shows when you tap New contact. Two habits are worth adopting the day it arrives. Save the contacts you only know through WhatsApp — the delivery rider, the tutor, the landlord’s manager — inside the app rather than the phone, so they follow your account. And keep encrypted backups on, because the new storage protects the contact list, not your chats.
Source: News18, via Prothom Alo.
