WhatsApp will allow you to use avatars to make video calls on Android devices. The new app update is already being tested on a limited group of users. The tool will make it possible for you to “mask” yourself with your 3D avatar, which will follow your facial expressions and movements in real time.
The feature, which joins others recently announced, will be available to more users in the coming weeks, reported wabetainfo. Meta is replicating the same idea it announced in July for Messenger and Instagram. “Wouldn’t it be great if there was a third option between camera off and camera on that would allow you to feel a little more present on the call?” the company led by Mark Zuckerberg said then in its Blog.
Meta also reported in July that WhatsApp would allow creating personalized avatars from a selfiea feature that the company is testing on its other networks since 2021. So far, there have been generated over a billion avatars through our technologies.
The new video calls with avatars for WhatsApp began to be deployed through the Google Play Beta Program, with version 2.23.19.14. “If you haven’t called your friends a llama, have you really lived?” Meta jokes on her blog.
Privacy with the use of avatars in video calls on WhatsApp
WhatsApp explains on its website that the application will estimate the location of parts of your face, such as eyes, nose and mouth. With this reference, it will adjust your face to a generic model that will allow the imitation of your facial expressions.
This information is not used to identify you as a user. «When you stop using this function or the video call ends, we will stop processing it. “We do not store it or share it with third parties,” says the platform in its section on privacy policies.
It will not store your biometric data, but it will save your avatar so you can use it in other calls. You can delete it whenever you want by just clicking on “Delete avatar” from the WhatsApp settings.
The avatar movement goes a long way. Meta, which has been insisting on its metaverse proposal for years, presented its Avatars Storea kind of virtual store that sells elements to customize your virtual figure. Fashion brands such as Prada joined the business. Also some of the most important sports companies in the world, such as NBA and Puma.