SINGAPORE, July 11 -- If your name happens to be Lawrence Wong, Ong Ye Kung or Vivian Balakrishnan, you may find it harder to claim that exact WhatsApp username when the messaging platform rolls out its new privacy feature in Singapore.

The handles matching the names of Singapore's Prime Minister, Health Minister and Foreign Minister have already been reserved by WhatsApp, which said it is locking down high-profile usernames to prevent scammers from impersonating public figures, The Straits Times reported today.

"To protect against impersonation, we've held the highest-profile names... so they can only ever be claimed by their legitimate owners. Lookalike derivatives of known names are held as well," a WhatsApp representative was quoted...