Post Content Meta’s new Incognito Chat feature aims to bring private AI conversations to WhatsApp and the Meta AI app. (Image: Meta)
Meta on Wednesday, May 13, introduced Incognito Chat, a new feature aimed at enabling private user conversations with its AI chatbot. The social media giant said that the feature is designed for users who may want to discuss sensitive topics or share personal, financial, or health-related information while interacting with AI chatbots.
Incognito Chat is built on top of Meta’s Private Processing technology which, the company claimed, makes user conversations with its Meta AI chatbot inaccessible to anyone else, including Meta. Once Incognito Chat is enabled, user chats with Meta AI become private and temporary. User prompts and AI-generated responses are not stored and will disappear by default.
Incognito Chat with Meta AI will begin rolling out on WhatsApp and the Meta AI app over the coming months, the company said.
The announcement comes at a time when AI-powered chat services are increasingly integrated into everyday communication. It also comes just days after Meta quietly discontinued the end-to-end (E2E) encryption option for Instagram DMs. This means Instagram is now able to access all the content of direct messages, including images, videos, and voice notes.
There are also growing concerns about the real-world harms posed by AI chatbots, including psychological risks and their alleged use to facilitate criminal activity. Recently, OpenAI was sued after its AI chatbot, ChatGPT, allegedly helped plan a school shooting in Florida, US.
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Meta’s Private Processing technology creates a secure cloud environment where its AI chatbot can analyse and process user queries without exposing them to anyone. It has been built on Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) to ensure that messages shared with it are not available to Meta or anyone else.
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“This system is meant to preserve the same level of privacy afforded by end-to-end encryption and on-device processing. The goal of Private Processing is to raise the bar for privacy and security for use cases where end-to-end encryption is not possible and on-device processing capabilities are insufficient,” as per Meta’s white paper on Private Processing.
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Meta said it has been exploring ways to offer AI chatbot services on WhatsApp while maintaining user privacy at scale. Though several other platforms offer incognito-style modes for interacting with their AI chatbots, Meta said that Incognito Chat is different because it even prevents Meta from being able to read these conversations.
In addition, Meta said that it plans to introduce a new feature called ‘Side Chat’ in the coming months. This feature is also protected through Private Processing, and is expected to provide AI assistance within ongoing chats without interrupting the main conversation.
(This article has been curated by Shivani P Menon, who is an intern with The Indian Express)
