How usernames have become India's latest battle over digital identity

For most of the internet's history, usernames have done much more than replace names. They have become digital identities.

Whether it is @elonmusk on X, @nike on Instagram or a gamer tag on Discord, usernames have evolved into persistent identities that allow people and businesses to be recognised across communities without relying on email addresses or phone numbers. They are searchable, memorable and, in many cases, carry reputations built over years.

That is also why they matter. A username is not just another way to log in; it is increasingly becoming the first point of interaction between people, brands and digital platforms.

So, a username may seem like one of the most obvious changes WhatsApp has introduced in years, one that has perhaps been long overdue.

Instead of sharing a phone number, users would be able to identify themselves with a unique handle, much like Instagram, Telegram or X. On paper, it is a privacy feature, allowing people to connect without revealing their personal mobile numbers.

Yet the proposal has triggered one of the latest regulatory flashpoints between India and Meta.

Why India matters

Last week, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) asked Meta to pause its much-publicized global rollout of WhatsApp usernames and respond to authorities within three days, citing concerns around privacy, impersonation and user safety. While the immediate trigger is fraud prevention, lawyers and marketers alike say the debate is about something much larger: who controls digital identity in an increasingly platform-driven internet.

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The scrutiny also comes at a time when WhatsApp occupies a uniquely important position in Meta's business strategy.

With more than 500 million users in the country, India is WhatsApp's largest market anywhere in the world. But despite that scale, Meta's ambitions have extended well beyond messaging.

Over the past few years, the company has steadily positioned WhatsApp as the centrepiece of its commerce strategy, introducing business messaging, payments, catalogues and AI-powered customer interactions in an effort to turn conversations into transactions.

That evolution has made WhatsApp more than just another messaging platform. For millions of Indian businesses, it has become a customer service channel, a storefront and increasingly, a marketing platform.

From phone numbers to usernames

For years, the mobile number has been the default identity on WhatsApp. It is also the foundation on which businesses interact with customers, whether for support, notifications or commerce.

Usernames could fundamentally change that. For WhatsApp. It should be noted that messaging alternatives like Telegram and Signal have had this as part of their UI since almost inception, rather than it being a new quirky feature.

“Today, getting into a brand's WhatsApp is high friction. You either click a paid ad, scan a QR code, or manually save a ten-digit number,” said Prashant Puri, Co-founder and CEO of AdLift. “Usernames remove that friction entirely. Suddenly WhatsApp works more like a search bar where you look a business up directly.”

For marketers, that could make WhatsApp handles as recognisable as website URLs or Instagram accounts, making it easier to direct consumers from billboards, television commercials or digital campaigns straight into conversations with brands.

Shradha Agarwal, Co-founder and Global CEO of Grapes Worldwide, believes the bigger impact could be behavioural rather than technological.

“Many consumers are comfortable browsing but are still selective about sharing their personal phone numbers. If usernames make those interactions feel simpler, we could see more people using WhatsApp for enquiries, support and even purchases,” she said.

The next identity layer

The feature has also reopened a much older debate around Meta's growing ecosystem, and legal experts say the government's concerns extend beyond impersonation and phishing.

“The principal concern is not merely impersonation, but the creation of a new, persistent digital identity layer,” said Alay Razvi, Managing Partner at Accord Juris. Such a system, he argued, could make it easier to link a user's activity and behaviour across platforms while also creating new opportunities for fraud and spoofing.

Tuhin Batra, Partner at TrailBlazer Advocates, echoed that view, saying usernames effectively create a “platform-controlled digital identity layer”, moving identity management away from telecom-based identifiers and further into Meta's own ecosystem.

That question has particular significance in India.

Last year, the Competition Commission of India fined Meta ₹213 crore over WhatsApp's 2021 privacy policy, arguing that sharing user data across Meta's services could strengthen its advertising business. Although the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal later stayed the restrictions on data sharing while allowing the penalty to stand, the broader regulatory questions have remained unresolved.

If usernames eventually become another persistent identifier across WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, lawyers believe they could attract fresh scrutiny around competition, profiling and data governance.

Razvi said regulators would likely expect Meta to keep data minimisation, purpose limitation and meaningful user consent at the centre of the feature, while avoiding default cross-app linking for advertising or profiling.

A marketing opportunity, and dependency

For marketers, however, the appeal is obvious. Persistent identities could make it easier to connect customer journeys across discovery, conversation, service and commerce.

“If a person's WhatsApp handle connects back to their Instagram and Facebook touchpoints, brands can finally close the loop,” said Puri. “A lot of attribution gets lost in the middle today.”

But he also warned that greater platform integration comes with a trade-off, noting, “If a customer relationship is anchored strictly to a platform username rather than a direct phone number or email the brand holds, you aren't owning that database. You are renting it.”

For Meta, this latest move represents one of the few large-scale opportunities globally to prove that messaging can become a meaningful business ecosystem. Against that backdrop, even seemingly incremental features such as usernames carry implications that extend beyond user convenience.

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Rajiv Dingra, Founder and CEO of ReBid, believes the bigger opportunity is not better targeting, but better trust.

“A username can create a lighter, more privacy-friendly front door for discovery, customer support, post-purchase service, communities and conversational commerce,” he said, adding that brands would need to rethink CRM systems where phone numbers are no longer the default customer identifier.

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However, Ajay Varma, Managing Partner at 0101.Today, sees the issue in broader strategic terms, pointing out, “The opportunity is obvious: a unified identity can deliver better personalization, attribution and customer experiences. The risk is equally obvious. If a handful of global platforms become the gatekeepers of digital identity, they gain unprecedented influence over consumer data, advertiser dependence and the future of digital commerce.”

For now, the debate remains less about whether WhatsApp should have usernames than about how those usernames fit into a much larger conversation around privacy, digital identity, competition and platform power.

In a recent development, the Indian government has given Meta three more days to submit its response over the concerns.