Misleading

Will AI Access Your WhatsApp Chats Without “Advanced Chat Privacy” Enabled?

A viral message warns that WhatsApp group chats and one-on-one messages are under “AI cybersecurity challenges” and that all group admins must activate a setting called “Advanced Chat Privacy” to prevent AI from legally accessing members’ messages and phone numbers. This claim has attracted significant attention and reactions from users. However, Fact Crescendo has confirmed that this claim is misleading.

This article presents our investigation into the origins and accuracy of the claim.

Social Media Claim

A Facebook post is circulating widely, claiming that all WhatsApp group admins must enable the “Advanced Chat Privacy” feature within their groups. The post warns that group chats may be vulnerable to AI-related cybersecurity risks if this setting is not activated.

This claim quickly gained traction, resulting in a significant number of reactions and comments from other users on the platform.

The following screenshot shows a Facebook user spreading a message of “Admins please turn on advanced privacy in your WhatsApp group. Whatsapp group chat is under AI cybersecurity challenges, each whatsapp group admin please switch on Advanced Chat Privacy, otherwise all AI will legally access into all group chat members messages and personal HP n to everyone phone.”

Facebook Post | Archived Link

A similar claim has also been observed and shared by another X user. This repetition highlights the viral nature of the claim and its ability to spread across the platforms.

For more information and specifics regarding this post, we can find the details below.

X Post | Archived Link

The viral message has recently been widely shared across personal and group chats on WhatsApp, leading to widespread misunderstanding and confusion about the company’s privacy policies and security practices.

The following screenshot shows one of the viral messages that has been widely circulated on the WhatsApp platform.

Archived Link

Given the claim’s extensive dissemination and the considerable attention, it has received from the internet community, we believed it was necessary to perform a fact-check on the above subject.

Fact Check

Fact Crescendo monitors and verifies claims through official WhatsApp announcements, relevant news updates, and privacy policy updates. This research has led us to the following conclusions:

According to official changelogs and independent verification by Fact Crescendo, “Advanced Chat Privacy” is indeed a legitimate WhatsApp feature added in recent updates.

It can be accessed by:

Tapping the name of any individual or group chat,
Navigating to the privacy options under that chat.

This setting allows users to:

Prevent chat history from being exported,
Stop media from being saved to the device’s gallery,
Disable Meta AI assistant interactions within that specific chat.

These features are intended to enhance user control over content visibility, media sharing, and AI assistant engagement, not to protect against third-party surveillance or “AI invasion.”

WhatsApp Help Center | Archived Link

Despite the alarming claim in the viral post, AI, including Meta’s own systems, cannot access private WhatsApp messages. That’s because WhatsApp has enforced end-to-end encryption (E2EE) since 2016, built on the Signal Protocol, one of the world’s most secure communication frameworks.

Similar claims have circulated in other regions as well. For instance, a viral hoax in Sri Lanka falsely alleged that WhatsApp calls are being recorded and connected to government systems. This claim, too, was debunked by Fact Crescendo Sri Lanka, which emphasized that WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption protects both messages and calls from third-party access, including governments. Read the related fact-check here.

How E2EE Protects Us:

Only the sender and recipient of a message can decrypt and read it
Messages are secured using unique cryptographic keys held only by the chat participants
Even WhatsApp and Meta cannot access the message content, let alone external AI systems or legal entities without device-level access.

WhatsApp Help Center | Achieved Link

There is no known legal mechanism in any country that permits AI tools to bypass this encryption or legally extract chat content without user consent.

What The Users Should Do:

Keep WhatsApp updated to access privacy features like Chat Lock and Advanced Chat Privacy.
Enable Two-Step Verification (Settings > Account > Two-step verification).
Don’t forward messages that make alarming claims without trusted sources.

Fact Crescendo also found that Meta AI, launched in April 2025, is an optional feature on WhatsApp powered by Meta’s generative AI. It allows users to chat with Meta AI, ask questions, generate AI images, and forward messages for further assistance.

The feature is opt-in only, it activates only when the user chooses to interact with it. When used, Meta receives the prompts, selected messages, and user feedback to provide relevant responses. However, Meta AI does not have passive or automatic access to chats or contacts. Feature availability may vary by country based on regulations.

Meta Newsroom | Archived Link

It is important to note that if a user has a malicious or overly permissive browser extension installed, their WhatsApp Web data could potentially be scraped when the platform is open in a browser. However, this is a separate security risk that is not related to the Meta AI feature or the Advanced Chat Privacy setting.

Moreover, WhatsApp messages are protected by end-to-end encryption, which means that only the sender and recipient can access the content of messages. This encryption technology prevents third parties, including AI systems, law enforcement, and even WhatsApp itself, from accessing message content without physical access to a user’s device.

This protection is supported by various legal and technical frameworks. The European GDPR includes provisions for protecting private communications and restricting unauthorized data access. In the United States, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act restricts the interception of electronic messages without proper authorization or legal orders. WhatsApp’s technical documentation details how their encryption protocol works to maintain message privacy through their Security Whitepaper.

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Conclusion

Fact Crescendo found that the above-mentioned claim is misleading. Even though WhatsApp has introduced a setting called “Advanced Chat Privacy,” the platform already uses end-to-end encryption (E2EE) by default for all personal and group chats. This means only the sender and recipient can read the messages, not even WhatsApp or its parent company, Meta, can access them.