Meta launches Incognito Chat on WhatsApp
What's the story
WhatsApp has launched a new feature called "Incognito Chat," designed to enable users to have private conversations with Meta AI. The unique aspect of this feature is that even Meta won't be able to access the questions or answers exchanged during these chats. The innovation is part of WhatsApp's Private Processing system, which was introduced last year and powers existing AI features like message summarization and composition tools.
Privacy assurance
How 'Incognito Chat' works
The Incognito Chat feature is a way for WhatsApp to integrate AI chat without compromising its end-to-end encryption policy. This means only the people involved in a conversation can see the messages or hear calls. Unlike other generative AI platforms that offer an "incognito mode" to keep user interactions hidden from providers, WhatsApp's Incognito Chat completely hides these interactions from Meta itself.
Feature details
Third-party audits and oversight for incognito chat
Meta has assured that third-party audits and vulnerability reports will be invited on Private Processing, with expert oversight for Incognito Chat. This way, third parties can verify the durability of the code Meta ships for this feature. However, using WhatsApp for communication still requires users to trust Meta as they would with any cloud system. Currently, Incognito Chat is text-only, but support for image processing and voice recognition is in the works.
Feature evolution
Temporary disappearing chats by default
Incognito chats are temporary by default, disappearing once the conversation is over. However, WhatsApp may consider adding a feature within Private Processing to save some or all of these conversations over time for users who want that history. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg emphasized that "Incognito Chat handles all AI inference in a Trusted Execution Environment that ensures your messages are not accessible to us."
User experience
Web searching in an anonymized way
Incognito Chat also comes with a feature, enabled by default but can be disabled, that lets its AI model search the web in an anonymized manner for real-time information. With over three billion users worldwide, Incognito Chat could be many people's first experience with an AI chatbot. Johns Hopkins cryptographer Matt Green, who consulted on Private Processing, said "if you want to talk to an AI without anyone else seeing your conversation, including Meta, this will do the job."