Could WhatsApp’s new username feature make it harder to catch fraudsters in Ghana?

For many Ghanaians, a phone number is no longer simply a means of making a call. It has become part of a person’s digital identity.

Over the past several years, Ghana has invested significantly in connecting mobile communication with formal identification.

The National Communications Authority (NCA) explains that Ghana Card information submitted during SIM registration is validated through the National Identification Authority (NIA), after which verified Know Your Customer information is returned to the mobile network operator (National Communications Authority, 2026).

Ghana’s latest SIM registration framework goes even further. According to the NCA, biometric information is now validated in real time against the NIA database before a SIM is activated, with the stated objective of ensuring that active numbers are connected to verified identities (Ministry of Communication, Digital Technologies and Innovations [MoCDTI], 2026).

This connection has an important consequence. When a phone number becomes relevant to a legitimate criminal investigation, it can potentially provide investigators with a starting point for determining who registered that number.

That matters at a time when fraud increasingly takes place through mobile phones, social media and instant-messaging platforms. However, WhatsApp is changing one of the assumptions on which this environment has operated.

In June 2026, Meta announced the introduction of usernames for WhatsApp. The feature is designed to allow users to communicate with new people without necessarily revealing their telephone numbers.

Meta says users will be able to reserve unique usernames, and when the feature is fully rolled out, people who enable usernames will be able to communicate with new contacts without those contacts automatically seeing their phone numbers (Meta, 2026). There are good reasons to welcome such a feature.

The question Ghana should be asking is this:

What happens to fraud investigations when the identifier visible to a victim is no longer a phone number, but simply a username?

An individual receives a WhatsApp message from an account presenting itself as an investment advisory service. The profile uses a professional logo, communicates convincingly and shares what appears to be legitimate investment opportunities. After several weeks of interaction, the victim transfers money through mobile money and bank channels.

When the promised returns fail to materialize, the victim, later discovers that the account was fraudulent. The account has since disappeared; conversations have been deleted and the only immediately visible identifier available to the victim is the WhatsApp username through which the communication took place.

In the traditional WhatsApp model, the victim might also have retained the phone number associated with the account. Although a phone number alone is not proof of identity and does not automatically identify the offender, it can provide investigators with an important starting point.

The legal foundation for Ghana’s national identity infrastructure dates to the National Identification Authority Act, 2006 (Act 707). Among other things, the Act established the NIA and tasked it with creating and maintaining a national identification system, collecting personal data, issuing national identity cards and protecting the accuracy, integrity, confidentiality and security of information collected by the Authority (Republic of Ghana, 2006).

Ghana has since continued strengthening identity verification. The National Identity Register (Amendment) Regulations, 2026 (L.I. 2523), for instance, introduced stronger biometric verification obligations in specified transactions.

The regulations require qualifying organizations to verify identities through approved biometric processes rather than merely depending on visual inspection, photocopies or scanned copies of national identity cards (Republic of Ghana, 2026). The direction of Ghana’s policy is therefore clear: important activities within the country’s increasingly digital economy should be connected to identities that can be reliably verified. WhatsApp usernames introduce an interesting tension into that trajectory.

When the Victim Sees @ForExampleInvestments Instead of +233 XX XXX XXXX

WhatsApp’s username feature responds to a genuine privacy concern. Telephone numbers are highly personal. The same number may be used for banking, mobile money, professional communication, family contacts, account recovery and authentication across several digital services. Giving a stranger your telephone number simply because you want to communicate on WhatsApp can therefore reveal more personal information than may be necessary.

WhatsApp’s proposed solution is straightforward: let users communicate through usernames. Instead of sharing +233 XX XXX XXXX, a person might share @ForExampleInvestments. According to Meta, WhatsApp will not operate a public username directory or automatically suggest usernames. People will generally need to know the exact username of the person they want to contact.

Meta also says that if a user has enabled a username, a new person messaging that account will not automatically see the user’s telephone number (Meta, 2026).

From a privacy standpoint, this makes considerable sense. From an investigative standpoint, however, it changes what a victim may immediately be able to provide. Imagine that @ForExampleInvestments disappears after receiving GHS 20,000. The victim takes screenshots and reports the incident to the police.

Previously, one of the first pieces of information available could have been a telephone number. Under a username-based interaction, the immediately visible information may instead be a username. The important question is therefore not whether WhatsApp usernames make criminals completely untraceable.

That would be an overstatement. The more precise question is whether usernames could remove a useful first layer of attribution that victims and investigators have become accustomed to.

A Username Does Not Necessarily Mean Anonymity

This distinction is important. Hiding a telephone number from another WhatsApp user is not necessarily the same as hiding the account from WhatsApp itself. WhatsApp usernames change what users disclose to one another.

The wording becomes particularly interesting in a world of usernames. A WhatsApp username could potentially become another form of unique digital identifier from which a lawful investigation begins. The investigative trail may therefore not disappear. It may simply become one step longer.

The Ghana Card Is Becoming More Important, Not Less

Another mistake would be to conclude that WhatsApp usernames somehow make Ghana Card-linked SIM registration irrelevant. They do not. The WhatsApp account still operates within a much larger digital and communications ecosystem. Furthermore, Ghana is strengthening rather than abandoning identity verification.

The 2026 amendment to the National Identity Register Regulations introduces enhanced requirements for biometric verification and restricts organizations from relying solely on visual inspection, photocopies, scanned copies or other unapproved methods where biometric verification is required (Republic of Ghana, 2026).

The question therefore becomes how Ghana can ensure that this increasingly strong identity infrastructure remains useful even as communication platforms introduce privacy layers between individual users. Perhaps we should rethink what it means to “identify” someone online.

individual users. Perhaps we should rethink what it means to “identify” someone online.

For years, we have become comfortable with treating a telephone number as though it represents a person. Technically, it does not. A phone number is an identifier assigned to a communications service. A Ghana Card identifies an individual within Ghana’s national identity infrastructure. A WhatsApp username represents an identity within a particular digital platform.

These identifiers may be connected, but they are not interchangeable. The future of cybercrime investigation may therefore depend less on requiring every platform to publicly expose a government-linked identifier and more on ensuring that lawful mechanisms exist through which different identifiers can be connected when necessary.

An investigation might increasingly progress like this:

Ghana does not necessarily need to respond to WhatsApp usernames by immediately passing another law. The first response should be to determine whether the current framework can deal with the change. The Cyber Security Authority, Ghana Police Service, National Communications Authority and other relevant institutions should therefore examine how username-based communication will affect evidence collection, victim reporting and digital investigations.

The practical question is whether those provisions remain sufficiently effective when the starting point of an investigation is a platform username rather than a visible telephone number. There is also a role for Meta and other global technology companies.

They should maintain clear channels through which legitimate requests from Ghanaian law enforcement agencies can be processed in accordance with Ghanaian law, applicable international processes and proper judicial oversight. Act 1038 already contemplates the possibility of production orders involving both domestic and foreign service providers (Republic of Ghana, 2020).

Public education will be equally important. Ghanaians must understand that a convincing username is not proof of identity. Someone using a name such as @GCBInvestmentDesk, @MTNGhanaSupport or @PoliceHelpCentre should not automatically be assumed to represent the institution suggested by that username.

Meta has introduced some safeguards against impersonation. Verified business accounts and WhatsApp Channels belonging to banks, telecom companies, government agencies, football clubs and public figures can now display a blue badge confirming that the account belongs to the organization it claims to represent (Meta 2026).

The badge replaced WhatsApp’s earlier green tick (MyOperator, 2026). Meta also says it reserves usernames for public figures and government entities so that only the legitimate owners can claim them (TechCrunch 2026). These controls have limits, however. The badge confirms that an account is genuine but does not flag fake ones, and most legitimate small businesses will never have one.

Early tests also found lookalike handles imitating public institutions still available to reserve, which prompted India’s IT ministry to warn of increased phishing and impersonation risks (TechCrunch 2026). Users should treat the blue badge as a helpful signal, not a guarantee, and confirm any request involving money or payment details through an official channel.

The CSA has repeatedly advised citizens to verify businesses and contacts through official or trusted sources rather than relying solely on contact information encountered online (Cyber Security Authority, 2026). That advice will become even more important in a username-based communication environment. Fraud-reporting procedures may also have to evolve. Victims should be encouraged to preserve usernames, screenshots, profile information, transaction references, payment information, timestamps, links and any other relevant digital evidence rather than concluding that the absence of a visible telephone number means there is nothing useful to report.

Technology Moves; Investigative Practices Must Adapt

The challenge is not entirely new. Previous research on mobile banking applications in Ghana observed that technological innovation often moves ahead of legislation and government responses, creating a continuing need for security and privacy frameworks to evolve alongside new technologies (Ansong & Synaepa-Addison, 2019).

The study specifically argued that as banking and other services become increasingly dependent on internet, computer and mobile technologies, appropriate frameworks are needed to address emerging data privacy and security concerns.

This concern is not unique to Ghana. Marchant (2011) describes what has become known as the “pacing problem” where the growing gap between the rapid development of emerging technologies and the comparatively slower evolution of legal and regulatory systems. As technologies change faster than traditional government institutions can respond, existing rules may become outdated while entirely new technological practices may emerge without adequate regulatory oversight.

More recently, Marchant (2026) argues that this problem continues to characterize emerging technologies, noting that traditional regulatory institutions often face structural and procedural limitations that make it difficult for them to keep pace with technological change. He consequently emphasizes the importance of more flexible and responsive approaches to technology governance.

WhatsApp usernames offer a practical example of this broader challenge in the Ghanaian context. Ghana’s SIM registration and national identification systems were developed within a communications environment in which phone numbers served as important and readily visible identifiers. But digital platforms are evolving.

As communication increasingly shifts from visible telephone numbers to platform-based identifiers such as usernames, the policies, investigative practices and public awareness mechanisms surrounding digital identity may also need to evolve.

This does not mean WhatsApp usernames are inherently problematic. They are, fundamentally, a privacy-enhancing feature. For millions of legitimate users, the ability to communicate without unnecessarily exposing a personal telephone number may provide meaningful privacy and security benefits.

But in Ghana where SIM registration, the Ghana Card and national identity verification have become increasingly interconnected the introduction of usernames should trigger a wider conversation about how crime is investigated when the identifiers visible on digital platforms change. The objective should not be to demand that every WhatsApp user publicly display his or her telephone number.

Neither should we assume that a username gives criminals complete anonymity. Instead, Ghana should ask a more forward-looking question:

Can we preserve the privacy benefits of WhatsApp usernames while ensuring that, when a serious crime occurs and the law authorises an investigation, there remains a lawful and technically effective pathway from a digital username to the person behind it? If the answer is yes, Ghana can have both privacy and accountability.

If the answer is uncertain, the time to address that uncertainty is not after a new generation of online fraud has taken root. It is now!

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