WhatsApp introduces phone number privacy feature for communities

The feature, known as "phone number privacy," ensures that phone numbers remain hidden from other community members.

Although the list of community members is already hidden in the community announcement group, previously users risked revealing their phone numbers when interacting with the group, including through message reactions. With the phone number privacy feature, even adding a post reaction will not reveal users' phone numbers.

Initially tested with a limited group of users, the phone number privacy feature is now being widely rolled out to more users on the latest version of the WhatsApp application.

Users will find a new option called "phone number privacy" in the community announcement group info, which provides an alert about the visibility of phone numbers.  

It clarifies that phone numbers are only visible to community administrators and contacts who have saved the user's number. This ensures that participants in the community chat cannot see the full phone numbers of other members in the conversation. However, the phone number of the community administrator remains visible.