WhatsApp's Next Privacy Feature Could Keep Others from Saving Your Chats
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Loading... - Rehema Abbas
- 09 Apr 2025
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In an era where online security and privacy are paramount, messaging platforms like WhatsApp are continuously evolving to enhance user protection. With features such as disappearing messages, end-to-end encryption, and chat locks, WhatsApp has established itself as a leader in secure communication. Now, the Meta-owned platform is reportedly testing a new "advanced chat privacy" feature aimed at further safeguarding user conversations.
According to findings by WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is exploring a feature that would prevent users from exporting their chat history with you. This means that if you enable the advanced chat privacy feature, individuals communicating with you will be blocked from exporting the entire conversation, including text messages and shared media.
While this feature enhances privacy, it’s important to note that it won’t completely eliminate the possibility of exporting chats. Users could still forward messages to a different number (like a burner number) and export the chats from there, creating an additional barrier for those looking to retain a comprehensive record of conversations.
Another intriguing aspect of this feature is its potential impact on interactions with Meta AI. Users with advanced chat privacy enabled may find themselves unable to interact with Meta AI, although it remains unclear whether this limitation applies solely to AI interactions within chats or to Meta AI in general. Speculatively, this could be a measure to prevent Meta AI from retaining conversations, further emphasizing user privacy.
In addition to restricting exports, the advanced chat privacy feature will also prevent any media you send from being automatically saved on the recipient's device, even if they have the 'save all media' option enabled for your chats. This limitation is already in place for media sent as disappearing messages, but unlike those, users may still have the option to manually save the media files sent under this new feature.
The advanced chat privacy settings will be applied on a chat-by-chat basis, allowing users to control privacy preferences within individual chat settings. Once activated, the limitations will apply to both participants in the conversation, even if one party has not explicitly enabled the feature. However, any participant can toggle the feature off, which will trigger a notification to the other user.
Currently, the advanced chat privacy feature is being rolled out to select beta users, but there is no official timeline for when it will be available to the broader user base. As WhatsApp continues to innovate in the realm of privacy, this upcoming feature could significantly enhance user control over their digital interactions, making it a noteworthy development in the landscape of secure messaging.
