WhatsApp function enables AI shutdown in chats-but is not necessary

The Chatbot Meta AI has been integrated in WhatsApp since March. The AI, which can be found in the app as a blue -bordered ring on the homepage, cannot be removed, even if this question is obviously asked again and again. With the help of the “Advanced Chat Privacy) function, which was introduced in April, users can block the AI from individual and group chats so that participants in a chat cannot switch on the AI.

The fact that Meta AI can access all data in WhatsApp, as is roliced in current chain letters, is not correct – and certainly not without the user’s order.

Meta Ai in WhatsApp only activated by users

The AI in WhatsApp can only access the data of the user if you interact with her and give her the order. All individual and group chats are end-to-end, so that only the participants of a chat round have access to the information shared therein.

The AI functions integrated in WhatsApp only work if users actively use them. This means that there is no automatic access to content, let alone telephone numbers. As a reminder: the latter actively deliver users to META when they synchronize their address book with WhatsApp to find their contacts.

Only when meta Ai is addressed via the @meta command in a chat window, the user opens the door to the chat for metas. With the AI in chat, for example, missed messages can be summarized (initially only in the USA) – this function is not yet available in Germany.

As the group explains, a session with a cloud server is set up for this private AI summary-anonymized by Oblivious HTTP (OHTTP) via third-party intermediate stations. According to the explanation, the session should be encrypted with a temporary key to which “Meta and WhatsApp have no access”; Only the end device and the Private processing server can therefore use it: Meta emphasizes that “nobody apart from the device of the user or the selected tea (Trusted Execution Environment)” can decrypt the request.

In addition, the “content and more detailed circumstances of chats between users of TK services”, which include WhatsApp, is subject to the special protection of telecommunications secret (§ 3 TDDDG), which is anchored in the Basic Law (Art. 10 GG) and its violation (§ 206 Criminal Code), ” explained The Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BFDI).

Extended data protection blocks users of AI use in chat

For even more control over the Meta-KI, although not really necessary, users can activate the “Advanced data protection” function. This feature must be activated individually for each chat. This is done via the respective settings, which can be accessed by pressing the recipient of the chat or the group name (not the three-point menu). If you tap @meta into a chat window, you get the note that the function in the respective chat is not available.

According to META, the “extended data protection” function serves especially in WhatsApp groups in which someone does not know all participants in more detail, but also discusses more confidential things. As an example, the group names discussions about health problems in supporter groups.