New Delhi, July 2 -- Widening the scrutiny over the 'username' feature, after issuing a notice to Meta regarding the roll-out of the feature on WhatsApp, the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has now sent notices to Telegram and Signal.

Both Telegram and Signal have been asked to explain their 'username' feature and its safeguards against impersonation and misuse.

Recently, Telegram faced a week-long ban in India ahead of the NEET-UG re-examination in June.

On Wednesday, the Centre issued a notice to Meta regarding the roll-out of the "usernames" feature on WhatsApp in India, stating that it may increase the incidence of online fraud, phishing, and digital arrest scams.

According to Meta, a username is an "optional unique identif...