WhatsApp's latest free update could be its most useful and significant yet

Owned by Facebook and Instagram's parent company Meta, WhatsApp is one of the world’s most popular messaging platforms, keeping millions of people in touch on a daily basis. And it always making little tweaks and changes to improve the experience.

The latest addition could be one of its most significant, however.

In recent months, we’ve seen the addition of new stickers to WhatsApp as well as new backgrounds for videos, but those minor updates may pale into insignificance. WhatsApp has announced that it is shaking up how contacts are managed, so they’re not dependent on your phone.

Until now, if you wanted to add a contact to WhatsApp, that person had to be added to your phone’s address book. That would mean that person was added to your contacts list synced to your account, then appearing on all your other devices. Now, WhatsApp has made it possible to have contacts that are only on WhatsApp.

This means that you don’t have to have that person in your main contacts list, which boosts your privacy. Contacts that you save in the app will sync across places that you’re using WhatsApp, but won’t venture out of the service unless you tell it to sync with your phone.

A privacy boost, but the potential for confusion

Currently any contact you add on WhatsApp is synced to your phone meaning that everything is in one place. That might cause problems for people using a work WhatsApp account, for example, if any business contacts are synced to your personal contacts list. Saving them just in WhatsApp would keep them private.

However, for many users, there’s the chance that the change will bring confusion, especially if you use more than one messaging app – or just like making phone calls. If you add someone from WhatsApp and they aren’t in your phone, you couldn’t move that conversation over to iMessage, or phone them, because you won't be able to find that contact.

WhatsApp goes on to say that you’ll soon be able to save contacts by usernames, so you won’t have a phone number associated with that person. That could mean that if you’re talking to someone then they don’t have your number, so can’t start phoning you.

At the same time, there’s the potential that this will lead to people misusing the system because there’s additional anonymity provided by there not being a phone number attached.