How Meta Plans To Keep Your WhatsApp Messages Private Even With AI

WhatsApp is a popular messaging platform with roughly 3 billion globally active users. With Meta AI already in the equation, WhatsApp users have raised questions about how the company handles their privacy. Well, Meta now has an answer to address such concerns.

In its first-ever AI event, LlamaCon, Meta previewed an early look into Private Processing, an optional feature that lets WhatsApp users make the most of the company’s AI tools without breaking privacy.

Meta doesn’t want WhatsApp users to compromise their privacy while using its AI tools

In an Engineering blog from yesterday, Meta explained Privacy Protection as an optional feature for WhatsApp users. It will maintain their privacy when using AI tools within WhatsApp. Meta explains, “This confidential computing infrastructure, built on top of a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), will make it possible for people to direct AI to process their requests.”

It will enable users to “leverage powerful AI features,” and ensure that “no one except you and the people you’re talking to can access or share your personal messages, not even Meta or WhatsApp.” Wired reports that Meta’s Private Processing feature is similar to Apple’s Private Cloud Compute. It allows the Cupertino giant to offer Apple Intelligence without sending your data to the cloud.

Meta assures WhatsApp users can summarize unread messages or refine them using AI while keeping their privacy intact. Remember, Meta has already implemented several privacy protections and end-to-end encryption, but they are incompatible with cloud-based Meta AI. That’s where Private Processing comes in.

The company will keep the technology under its bug bounty program

Meta will keep this technology under its bug bounty program and offer rewards for finding security loopholes in its services. The company seems to be aware of security concerns, which is why it is also allowing security researchers to audit Private Processing. Putting it simply, Meta is taking the privacy of WhatsApp users working around AI quite seriously.

For now, it’s unclear whether or when generative AI would make its way into WhatsApp. Moreover, the company has also been contacting large companies to help fund Llama.

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