User privacy isn’t one of Facebook’s strong suits, and the company has found itself embroiled in numerous privacy debacles in the recent past. However, Facebook has been taking small steps in the right direction, ever since the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlined his vision for a privacy-focused messaging and social networking platform last year. The latest in the list of privacy-focused changes comes in the form of a new App Lock feature and additional privacy settings for Facebook Messenger.
As per a recent blog post from the company, the Facebook Messenger app is getting a new App Lock feature, which will allow users to secure their chats using their phone’s biometric authentication. The company released a similar feature for the popular WhatsApp messenger back in October last year, and now it’s finally rolling out to Facebook Messenger on iOS and should reach Android users in the next few months.
The new App Lock feature can be found within the new Privacy settings section on the app, which offers easy access to all privacy settings like Story Audience, Muted Stories, Blocked People, Secret Conversations, and more.
Along with these new features, Facebook is also working to bring additional controls that will let users decide who can reach them on Messenger directly, who goes to the requests folder, and who can’t message them at all. The controls will also include a feature that blurs images in the message requests folder, which will give users the choice to view an image from an unknown person. As of now, Facebook hasn’t revealed when the new privacy controls will be available on the messaging platform.
Source: Facebook Newsroom