From WhatsApp there is talk with greater insistence in recent days not only due to the statements regarding the possibility of seeing advertisements in the app. The messaging platform owned by Meta, in fact, has been enriched with one new feature related to privacy. It is now possible hide your IP address during calls made on the green service.
To date, calls on WhatsApp are established as one peer-to-peer connection directly between users. This is to ensure the best possible voice quality, but involves sharing their respective IP addresses.
Now, however, as explained in a detailed blog post, it is possible to hide the IP address from the other person on the call. «IP addresses may contain information that some privacy-conscious users are aware of, such as geographic location or Internet provider“, it is read. «To solve this problem, we have introduced a new feature on WhatsApp that allows you to protect your IP address during calls. When enabled, all your calls are routed through WhatsApp servers, ensuring that it is impossible for other participants in the call to see your IP address and, consequently, your general geographic location».
Obviously, all calls also via WhatsApp servers remain protected by crittografia end-to-end and this means that no one, not even Meta, can listen to them.
The WhatsApp development team preventively underlines that enabling this feature could reduce the quality of voice calls. If this is not a problem, you can activate it as follows these few simple steps:
- In WhatsApp, go to Settings → Privacy
- To select Advance (the last entry)
- Place on On the function toggle Protect IP address during calls
The feature appears to be already available globally for all users. If you don’t see it in the app settings, check that you have downloaded it the latest WhatsApp update available.
