Analysis: WhatsApp’s usernames are part of a move to make you easier to find online, but cybersecurity often encourages the opposite<\/p>\n
WhatsApp<\/a> is introducing<\/a> usernames, allowing people to connect without sharing phone numbers. On the surface, it looks like a straightforward privacy improvement, but it also highlights a deeper tension that has been quietly shaping the internet for years. We are constantly being encouraged to become easier to find, while cybersecurity often encourages the opposite.<\/p>\n If someone asked you how to improve your career online, the advice would probably sound familiar. You would be told to use your real name, maintain consistent usernames across platforms, develop a professional LinkedIn<\/a> profile, create a personal website and publish your work. The underlying message is clear: build a recognisable online presence and make yourself easy to find.<\/p>\n We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\n From RT\u00c9 Radio 1’s Today with David McCullagh, Irish Times’ business and technology journalist Ciara O’Brien on WhatsApp rollout of user names<\/p>\n If, on the other hand, you asked a cybersecurity expert how to reduce your exposure online, the advice might sound remarkably different. You would be encouraged to limit the personal information you share publicly, separate professional and personal accounts where appropriate, avoid revealing more than necessary and think carefully about what strangers can learn about you. In short, you would be advised to avoid making yourself an easy target.<\/p>\n While neither advice is wrong, the problem is that they point in opposite directions. For much of the internet’s history, this contradiction barely mattered. Being easy to find was largely a matter of convenience. Search engines were less sophisticated, social media platforms were fragmented, connecting the dots took effort and assembling a detailed picture of someone’s life required considerable patience. Most people existed online in disconnected pieces. A LinkedIn profile sat in one place, a hobby forum in another and a university webpage somewhere else.<\/p>\n But that world is disappearing. Today, the internet increasingly rewards identity consistency. Employers expect it. Universities encourage it. Businesses depend on it. Creators are advised to use the same username across every platform so audiences can recognise them instantly. Search engine optimisation rewards consistency. Personal branding rewards consistency. Even messaging platforms are beginning to reward consistency.<\/p>\n \n From RT\u00c9 Brainstorm, why password rules and restrictions don’t work<\/p>\n WhatsApp’s introduction of usernames is simply the latest example of a broader trend where our online identities are becoming increasingly portable. They exist precisely so other people can find us. On Snapchat<\/a>, Instagram<\/a>, Reddit<\/a>, Discord<\/a>, TikTok<\/a>, GitHub<\/a>, X<\/a> and countless gaming platforms, usernames are our public identity. They help friends connect, communities grow and conversations happen. According to Snap Inc., Snapchat alone has more than 900 million monthly active users<\/a>, while Discord reports over 200 million monthly active users worldwide<\/a>. Hundreds of millions of people navigate the internet through persistent digital identifiers that often follow them from one platform to the next.<\/p>\n On one level, this is undoubtedly beneficial. WhatsApp’s move away from phone numbers should improve privacy by reducing the need to share one of our most persistent personal identifiers. Our phone numbers are tied to messaging apps, banking services, multi-factor authentication, online shopping and countless other parts of our digital lives. Reducing the need to hand it out to strangers is undoubtedly a sensible move.<\/p>\n Yet it also illustrates something deeper. More and more of our digital lives are becoming organised around identities that we choose and cultivate rather than identifiers that are assigned to us. That may be good news for convenience, but it is more complicated for cybersecurity. Most of us rarely think twice about the names we choose. Perhaps it is simply our own name, a favourite nickname or the same handle we have been using since secondary school. Convenience encourages consistency. After all, it is easier if friends can find us everywhere using the same username. That convenience, however, also creates something cybercriminals find extremely useful: continuity.<\/p>\n We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\n From RT\u00c9 Radio 1’s News At One, UCC launches new toolkit to combat engagement with AI deepfakes<\/p>\n Imagine two professionals, Jane and Michael. Jane is an academic who has deliberately built a coherent online identity with the same professional photograph and username on LinkedIn, ResearchGate<\/a>, X, GitHub and WhatsApp. Their biography follows a similar format everywhere. Searching for them is effortless. Prospective employers can quickly find their publications. Journalists can contact them. Collaborators know they have found the right person. Years of careful reputation-building mean that one search returns a complete professional profile.<\/p>\n Michael has approached the internet differently. Their LinkedIn profile is public, but other accounts use different usernames. Their hobby forums are separate from their professional identity. Their personal Instagram cannot immediately be connected to their university profile. Friends still know how to find them, but strangers have to work considerably harder to understand who they are.<\/p>\n Who has managed their digital identity more effectively? There is no obvious answer. From the perspective of career development, Jane has probably made better choices. Their visibility creates opportunities, their consistency builds trust and their discoverability makes networking easier. But from the perspective of cybersecurity, Michael has introduced something valuable: friction.<\/p>\n We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\n From RT\u00c9 Radio 1’s The Business, Aifric O’Connell on LinkedIn, a site that most people either love or loathe<\/p>\n Cybersecurity is often misunderstood as making systems impossible to attack. In reality, it is frequently about making attacks more expensive, more time-consuming or simply less worthwhile. Strong passwords do not guarantee safety; they simply increase the effort required to compromise an account. Multi-factor authentication introduces another obstacle. Rate limits slow automated attacks. Good security rarely eliminates risk entirely, but it does change the economics.<\/p>\n Visibility works in exactly the opposite direction. The same visibility that creates opportunity can also create vulnerability. Every additional public profile, every consistent username and every easily connected account reduces the effort<\/a> required for someone to understand you. That “someone” might be a prospective employer carrying out due diligence. It might be a journalist looking for an expert to interview. It might be a researcher seeking collaborators. But it could equally be someone preparing a phishing email, an impersonation attempt or a social engineering attack.<\/p>\n That does not mean visibility is a mistake. Far from it. Modern careers increasingly depend upon being discoverable. Academics want their research to be read. Businesses want customers to find them. Freelancers need portfolios. Creators depend upon recognisable brands. The internet has become an enormous marketplace for reputation, and reputations cannot generate opportunities if nobody can find them.<\/p>\n We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\n From RT\u00c9 Radio 1’s Liveline, ‘my WhatsApp was hacked’<\/p>\n Perhaps, then, the question is not whether we should become more visible or more private, but if we have become too comfortable treating visibility as an unquestioned virtue. For years, technology companies have measured success by reducing friction. Fewer clicks, faster searches, easier discovery, more recommendations and better connections have all contributed to an internet that is extraordinarily good at helping us find one another. Cybersecurity has been solving a different problem altogether. It has been trying to decide when we should be harder to find. WhatsApp’s usernames did not create that tension, but they are further making it impossible to ignore<\/a>.<\/p>\n The next chapter of digital literacy will not involve teaching people how to spot scams or create stronger passwords. Instead, it will involve understanding that visibility is neither inherently good nor inherently bad. Like any powerful technology, it creates both opportunities and risks. The internet rewards those who can be found and cybersecurity often rewards those who cannot. The challenge for the rest of us is learning when each matters most.<\/p>\n Follow RT\u00c9 Brainstorm on WhatsApp<\/a> and Instagram<\/a> for more stories and updates<\/p>\n The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RT\u00c9<\/p>\n