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Meta is enhancing user privacy on WhatsApp with the upcoming ‘Private Processing’ feature, designed to provide a secure and confidential environment for interacting with Meta AI. This optional feature, expected to roll out in the coming weeks, ensures that Meta, WhatsApp, and third parties cannot access the content of AI conversations. ‘Private Processing’ allows users to utilize AI functions, such as chat summaries, while maintaining complete data privacy. Upon completion of a ‘Private Processing’ session, all user message data is permanently deleted, preventing unauthorized access and potential targeted attacks. Meta plans to undergo independent third-party audits to validate the system’s security and privacy claims. The new feature is also included in Meta’s bug bounty program. A detailed security design document will be published nearer to the launch. This initiative shares parallels with Apple’s Private Cloud Compute (PCC), using a third-party provider for OHTTP to obscure user IP addresses. However, while Apple relies on primarily on-device AI processing (using PCC as a backup), WhatsApp’s AI requests are processed on Meta’s servers through the user-initiated ‘Private Processing’ function.