Facebook Messenger now lets you lock conversations behind Apple's Face ID

(Credit: Facebook)

Facebook has announced new features to its Messenger platform to keep your conversations more secure.

The standalone Messenger app can now require users to unlock it via facial identification or other biometric information such as touch ID.

It is available on iPhone and iPad currently, and will be coming to Android users in the next few months.

Facebook says it does not retain or transmit such biometric data.

In order to enable to new feature, users must navigate to the Privacy settings section and enable it.

As well as this, Facebook says that other new features will be rolling to messenger.

This includes greater controls over “who can message or call you directly, who goes to your requests folder, and who can’t message or call you at all”, like the message controls on Instagram, also owned by Facebook.

The social media giant is also testing a feature akin to those on Instagram and WhatsApp (also owned by Facebook) which blurs images in the requests folder automatically.

This will stop users from potentially seeing graphic or unwanted images and gives them more freedom to view the message before choosing to reply, block, or report the user.

Facebook did not say when the feature would be coming to Messenger; The Independent has reached out for clarification.

This is not the only new feature that Facebook has brought out for its products. Android users on Instagram in the UK, US, and Ireland will find a new feature that lets them raise money from their followers.

The feature, called “Personal Fundraisers”, is similar to GoFundMe. Money can be sent through a new “donation sticker”, as long as users are over the age of 18.