Facebook wants to add security features to Messenger. In a report on Engadget, users can better protect messages from "prying eyes." Enabling this allows them to authenticate their identities with Face ID, Touch ID, and passcode before viewing the inbox, even phones are unlocked.
Note that this feature depends on each device's security features, so however, you unlock these devices is also how you will unlock Messenger. Users may likewise allot time to leave the app when you require to re-authenticate.
New security feature
Facebook is also testing this new security feature over a few selected iOS users on Messengers before making this available over a wide range of users, including those on Android.
"We want to give people more choices and controls to protect their private messages, and recently, we began testing a feature that lets you unlock the Messenger app using your device's settings. It's an added layer of privacy to prevent someone else from accessing your messages," a spokesperson said.
The feature is also similar to security settings of other popular messaging apps, including Signal, an encrypted application. Signal recently had a surge of downloads recently. Moreover, Facebook is also ramping up its security features for quite some time now. Secret Conversations, for instance, is an encrypted messaging feature that will "one day make end-to-end encryption a default setting of the app."
However, the plan may take several years away to materialize, the report added.
Returns
A year after leaving Facebook over "differences" with CEO Mark Zuckerberg over the company's direction, the chief product officer Chris Cox is returning to the company, The Verge reported.
Facebook issued a statement yesterday that Cox would get back to his duties, including managing the Messenger app, alongside WhatsApp and Instagram, and marketing.
"Facebook and our products have never been more relevant to our future. It's also the place I know best, and the best place for me to roll up my sleeves and dig in to help," Cox said.
He has been a long-time part of the company and was even tagged the heir to the CEO's job. He reportedly left the company in March after Zuckerberg made announcements that the company would enable end-to-end encryption across its products.
Cox wrote during this time, "This will be a big project, and we will need leaders who are excited to see the new direction through."
He became part of Facebook in 2015, as the company's 13th software engineer. During his tenure, he played an important role in designing the original layout of News Feed, helping to turn Facebook into the world's biggest social networking website. He also managed the products in 2018, adding these to his portfolio.
Since he left, his achievements included initiatives on climate change and contributing progressively toward political causes. He is also reportedly a donor and informal adviser to an organization working on Democratic voter registration, Acronym.
