Deactivate AI in Chat: The Most Important WhatsApp Feature that Nobody Knows
WhatsApp is one of our absolute favorite apps, despite belonging to Meta. However, many users are skeptical about the Meta AI that lies within WhatsApp. If you want to ensure additional data protection from AI, WhatsApp now offers a personalized setting, which, unfortunately, is not widely known. We'll show it to you, of course!
Yes, it's a bit of a love-hate relationship with WhatsApp: We don't really like Meta, and we know that there are much better instant messenger services — but somehow, we still (almost) all use WhatsApp, because that's where everyone is. However, very few people are happy that Meta's own AI has made its bed in WhatsApp.
- Read more about the topic: What do the WhatsApp check marks mean?
The blue circle, which stands for Meta AI, is now permanently illuminated and cannot be removed. At least you can make the Meta AI chat disappear from the overview. Nevertheless, we are grateful for every opportunity to ensure additional data protection and less AI. If you feel the same way, you should read the following tip carefully!
How to better protect your chat
As you all probably know, data in WhatsApp chats (both single and group chats) has been end-to-end encrypted for a long time now. However, this nosy little meta AI can also read the content if someone tags you in the chat. WhatsApp designed its own security setting for this, but it is deactivated by default and has to be discovered first to make changes.
If this setting, which was introduced as "Advanced Chat Privacy" earlier in April, is activated, the AI can no longer read your content. What's more, chats can no longer be exported by anyone. We will tell you how to activate this setting for additional data protection:
- Tap the name of the person or group at the top of the relevant chat.
- In the corresponding menu that pops up, tap the new item, "Advanced Chat Privacy", that is located below "Chat lock".
- At the bottom, you can then activate the extended chat data protection using the toggle.
If you have toggled the switch for Advanced Chat Privacy, this has three consequences:
- Media can no longer be automatically saved in the gallery of the respective devices
- The chat cannot be exported
- AI functions such as mentioning @Meta AI or summarizing unread messages cannot be used
If you were to limit the influence of Meta AI in WhatsApp in this way, you must also be aware of the subsequent effects. Please note that anyone in the group can enable or disable this feature. This also means that if you disable it, another person can enable it anytime!
Attention! You are now supposedly safe!
Using this setting, you actually ensure additional data protection. However, you should not feel safe by default because of this. Meaningful metadata is still stored, i.e., things like name, "last seen" timestamp, ID address, email address, profile picture, and much more. WhatsApp may disclose this data to law enforcement authorities on request. Also, be cautious if you share your phone book, as this provides Meta with access to the contact details of people who may not even use WhatsApp.
Regarding Advanced Chat Privacy, it only provides a false sense of security. Even if the AI no longer has access, chats can still be forwarded. Of course, there is also the possibility that the other person will capture screenshots of the chat.
Nevertheless, what is shown here is one way to ensure a little more security when using WhatsApp. Therefore, I hope we have been able to help you a little with our tip.
Source: WhatsApp
