The authentication feature that allows you to unlock your WhatsApp using a fingerprint sensor has been in development for some time now. Weirdly enough that feature will come with some strange restrictions.
It seems like once you’ve enabled the “unlock with fingerprint” feature you will not be able to take screenshots of your own conversation for some reason.
![](https://t3n9sm.c2.acecdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/AUTH_NO_SCREENSHOTS-560x338.jpg)
It’s not entirely clear why screenshots are disabled when you’ve turned on authentication and strangely enough that’s not the case on iOS. Maybe it would have made sense if you could stop people from taking screenshots of your conversation.
I hope this is just WhatsApp internally testing something that might not come to the application
One response
The idea is that you want to be certain there’s no unauthorised access to your messages by anyone other than the person with the known fingerprint. On Android, disabling screenshots will prevent the WhatsApp screen contents from being visible in the task switcher. A common way to view the last screen contents, of an app, without actually opening it.