WhatsApp is rolling out a significant update to its privacy features, giving users more control over their chat data. A new “advanced chat privacy” setting is currently being tested in beta versions for both iOS and Android. This exciting development allows you to restrict who can export your chat history and prevent media from automatically saving to recipients’ devices.
This enhanced privacy feature, spotted by WABetaInfo, adds a toggle in the settings for both individual and group chats. Switching it on will prevent anyone in the chat from exporting the entire conversation outside of WhatsApp. This means no more easily accessible backups of your chats for others to potentially misuse or share. The setting also prevents automatic saving of photos and videos to the recipient’s device gallery. While it’s unclear from the initial reports if manual saving will still be possible, this step significantly reduces the risk of unwanted media dissemination.
Group chats will receive a notification when this advanced privacy setting is enabled, ensuring transparency among participants. Interestingly, activating this setting also disables the Meta AI integration within the chat. This AI feature, capable of answering questions and generating images, is temporarily unavailable when the enhanced privacy mode is active.
It’s important to note that while this new feature is a major step toward enhanced privacy, it doesn’t provide complete protection. Individual messages can still be forwarded, and screenshots remain a possibility. To further secure your chats, users can leverage WhatsApp’s existing disappearing messages feature, allowing for auto-deletion after a customizable time period.
For now, the advanced chat privacy setting is limited to beta users, and there’s no official word on a broader rollout. However, this development showcases WhatsApp’s commitment to bolstering user privacy and control over their personal conversations. Keep an eye out for future updates as this valuable feature nears its official release.
