You may soon need to re-login to WhatsApp Web every 6 hours under new govt directive: here's what to know

Government of India's Department of Telecommunications has issued directions to app based communication services like WhatsApp and Signal to implement mandatory SIM binding. In practice, this could mean that the apps would only work if they have a SIM card present and active on the user's device.

“It has come to the notice of the Central Government that some of the app based communication services that are utilising mobile numbers for identification of their customers or for provisioning or delivery of services allow users to consume their services without availability of the underlying Subscriber Identity Module within the device in which the app based communication service is running, and this feature is posing a challenge,” the official notification reads.

The department also noted that “this feature is posing a challenge to telecom cyber security as it is being misused from outside the country to commit cyber frauds.”

It also warned that failure to comply with the new norms will lead to action being taken under the Telecommunications Act, 2023, the Telecom Cyber Security Rules and other applicable laws.

What will the new SIM binding rules change?

The new norms mean that apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Arattai, Snapchat, ShareChat and JioChat must continuously verify if the smartphones running them have the same SIM card active on them or not. If the registered SIM is not found on the phones, the apps must stop functioning.

Moreover, for web versions of these apps, the service must automatically log out users periodically, no later than every six hours. This means that users will need to re authenticate themselves every six hours when using WhatsApp Web or other similar services.

The department reasons that it was important to bring in the new norms to protect people from cyber frauds and the misuse of telecommunications identifiers.