India, July 1 -- The Centre has reportedly issued a notice to Meta to pause the rollout of WhatsApp's proposed username feature in India and furnish a detailed explanation within three days.

As per a report by ET, the government's concern stems from the feature's potential to be misused for impersonation and identity fraud. Apart from impersonation and identity fraud, policymakers were also examining possible implications for data sharing with other Meta apps - Facebook and Instagram.

The proposed feature, whose roll out was in the process, allows users to connect with each other by using usernames instead of sharing phone numbers. Meta announced the launch of the feature yesterday.

This would shift WhatsApp closer to identity systems ...