WhatsApp is testing Scam Alert with a small group of Android beta users

WhatsApp is trying out a feature called Scam Alert with a limited number of Android beta testers. According to WABetaInfo, it looks at messages from people who are not in your contacts and flags ones that match known scam patterns. If it spots something, WhatsApp shows a warning and offers you the choice to block and report the sender, or to mark the chat as trusted so you stop seeing the warning.

The detail worth knowing is where the checking happens. WABetaInfo reports the feature uses a machine-learning model that runs on the phone itself, which means the message content is not sent to WhatsApp or Meta for analysis. The feature is also described as optional and switched off by default, so testers have to turn it on.

To be clear about status: this is a beta test, not a launch. It is reaching only some Android beta testers right now. Features at this stage regularly get reworked, renamed, or dropped entirely, so there is no guarantee it will reach the stable app or that it will look like this when it does.