WhatsApp is currently experimenting with a new feature dubbed “advanced chat privacy,” designed to enhance user control over conversations. This feature aims to restrict functionalities such as blocking other users from exporting the entire chat history and preventing media from being automatically saved to the recipient’s device gallery. Notably, enabling this feature in a conversation will also restrict interactions with Meta AI within that chat.
The advanced chat privacy settings will be enforced on a per-chat basis. Once any participant activates this feature, it applies to everyone involved in the conversation. Presently, this feature is in beta testing, and there is no public release timeline shared.
In our increasingly digital world, security and privacy during online communication have become critical. This is why secure messaging apps like Signal, WhatsApp, and Google Messages are among the most popular platforms. These apps often come with various privacy features, including disappearing messages and end-to-end encryption, which give users more control over their interactions.
Among the updates being tested by WhatsApp is the ability to prevent others from exporting chat histories. If I enable the forthcoming advanced chat privacy feature, individuals communicating with me will be blocked from exporting our entire conversation, which includes any text messages and shared media. However, this measure won’t completely eliminate the possibility of exports, as users could still forward messages to other accounts and export chats from those.
Furthermore, if the advanced chat privacy feature is activated, users will not be able to interact with Meta AI in the chat. The details about whether this limitation affects all Meta AI interactions or just those in affected chats remain unclear. It’s speculated that this restriction could aim to prevent Meta AI from storing conversations.
In addition to limiting exports, this feature will stop media shared in chats from automatically saving on the recipient’s device, regardless of their individual settings. Although similar to existing disappearing message features, users may still have the option to manually save files sent in this manner. In summary, the advanced chat privacy feature will be implemented on a chat-by-chat basis.
Once enabled, any changes will apply universally to both chat participants, although either individual can toggle off the feature, thereby triggering a notification. This new privacy toggle is currently being rolled out to select beta users, but there is no indication of when it will be available to a broader audience.
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