WhatsApp has announced plans to let users to edit messages for up to 15 minutes after sending them.

Users can 'long-press' on a sent message and choose edit from the menu to change what they have written within the time frame.

Edited messages will display ‘edited’ so that the receiver of the message is aware of the correction without edit history.

WhatsApp said that the feature has already started rolling out to users globally, with it being available to everyone who uses WhatsApp over the next few weeks.

The move comes a week after the messaging platform launched a new feature which hides “intimate” or private conversations behind an additional layer of security.

‘Chat Lock’ takes the private conversation out of the platform's inbox and puts it in a separate folder which can only be accessed with device passwords or biometrics, including fingerprints or facial recognition.

The new feature also automatically hides the contents of the private chat in notifications.

WhatsApp recently published an open letter warning that the UK government’s upcoming Online Safety Bill could lead to tech firms being forced to "break end-to-end encryption" on private messaging apps.

The letter, co-signed by executives at WhatsApp, Signal, Element, Wire, Viber, Threema, and OPTF/Session, hits back at the much-anticipated legislation, claiming the law could lead to “indiscriminate surveillance” of personal messages friends, employees, executives, journalists, human rights activists, and politicians.

WhatsApp is concerned that the Bill does not deliver any explicit protection for encryption and could allow Ofcom to force the “proactive scanning of private messages on end-to-end encrypted communication services".

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