• Source:JND
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WhatsApp has unveiled a new feature intended to guard users against scams—specifically those sent via group messages. Rolled out on Tuesday, the new feature is known as Safety Overview, and it is triggered whenever you are added to a group by someone who is not in your contacts list.

The feature gives users important information about the group—like who invited you, how many people are in it, who founded it, and when it was founded. That added context allows users to quickly judge whether or not the group is safe or could be a scam.

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After you see the Safety Overview prompt, you can opt to see the group details and then stay or leave. If the information looks familiar, you can open the chat to further investigate. But if the group looks suspicious or completely unfamiliar, WhatsApp allows you to exit without even opening the message thread.

Additionally, to prevent spam notifications from flooding your phone, group alerts remain muted until you confirm that you want to stay in the group by checking a box within the app.

The feature was revealed in a blog post on Meta’s official newsroom, where WhatsApp outlined the growing need to fight phishing attempts and scam campaigns targeting users through unsolicited group adds.

WhatsApp also shared updates on another safety tool currently in testing. This feature provides warnings when users initiate a chat with someone not in their contacts, displaying more context about the person to help users avoid risky conversations.

As part of its broader anti-scam initiative, WhatsApp said it banned more than 680,000 accounts in recent months. These accounts were reportedly tied to scam centres, many of which used AI tools to defraud users at scale.

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In a collaborative effort with Meta and OpenAI, WhatsApp helped uncover a scam network based in Cambodia. Reports say the operation misused AI tools like ChatGPT to run schemes ranging from fake pay-for-like jobs to cryptocurrency fraud and even a scooter rental pyramid scheme.