WhatsApp’s new spam call blocker reminded me to activate ‘Silence Unknown Callers’ on my iPhone

WhatsApp is really catching up with the pack on this one.

In a blog post, the company announced that it is adding a new feature to block phone calls from unknown callers. The feature, if users turn it on, will silence calls from numbers that you don’t have as part of your contact list. It’s a good thing to turn on if you want to block all of those spam callers looking to sell you an extended warranty for your car.

WhatsApp says that calls coming in from unknown callers won’t ring your phone but instead be sent directly to your Call list in case you want to check and get back to anyone that you’d actually want to.

Silence Unknown Callers is designed to give you more privacy and control of your incoming calls. It helps to automatically screen out spam, scams, and calls from unknown people for increased protection. These calls will not ring on your phone, but will be visible in your Call list, in case it turns out to be someone important.

The app is also getting a new Privacy Checkup feature that lets users review and enable any of the privacy features that the app offers and that they’d like to use. That’s a great idea since privacy features continue to grow, and figuring all of it out can be quite confusing.

This step-by-step feature guides you through important privacy settings to help you choose the right level of protection, all in one place. Selecting ‘Start checkup’ in your Privacy settings will navigate you through multiple privacy layers that strengthen security of your messages, calls, and personal information.

It’s great to see WhatsApp adding more features to make sure users understand and can elect for more privacy. However, I’ve always been hesitant to enable a feature like sending unknown callers straight to voicemail. I’m always afraid that I’m going to miss an important call, so even though the iPhone has offered a similar feature for a while now, I’ve disabled it.

WhatsApp, however, had to come bust through the door and has me reconsidering, because after years of having the feature turned off, I can’t remember one important call that I’ve actually missed. So, thanks, WhatsApp!

These features aren’t the only ones the company is adding recently. It also recently started testing the ability to add multiple accounts to one device and added support for usernames.