Meta Announces Development of Secure AI Processor for WhatsApp
Meta is building a capability called Private Processing for the messaging app WhatsApp, giving customers the option of using AI to process messages in a secure cloud environment that no one, including the social media and messaging platforms, can access.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Private Processing will "support people’s needs and aspirations to leverage AI in a secure and privacy-preserving way," Meta said in an announcement Tuesday. "This confidential computing infrastructure, built on top of a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), will make it possible for people to direct AI to process their requests -- like summarizing unread WhatsApp threads or getting writing suggestions -- in our secure and private cloud environment." The technology will let users leverage AI while preserving WhatsApp’s "core privacy promise, ensuring no one except you and the people you’re talking to can access or share your personal messages, not even Meta or WhatsApp."
The company said the processor will be an optional tool that users control, and that it will provide transparency whenever the technology is used. It is designed to prevent other systems from accessing user data, with enforceable guarantees and the ability for independent audits to ensure privacy and security promises are being kept, Meta said.
Additionally, the company worked with the security community to prepare for threats to the technology, and implemented defenses so that attackers cannot single out one user without compromising the whole Private Processing system, and by ensuring the tech does not keep access to messages once a session is complete.
"Private Processing creates a secure cloud environment where AI models can analyze and process data without exposing it to unauthorized parties," said the announcement. This is done by authenticating the user behind the request, using third-party relays for connection and end-to-end encryption, among other things, to keep the messages private.
"Anywhere the system processes untrusted data, there is potentially an attack surface for a threat actor to exploit," Meta said, but "Private Processing is designed to reduce such an attack surface through limiting the exposed entry points to a small set of thoroughly reviewed components which are subject to regular assurance testing."
The company's announcement went into great detail as to how the system was designed and the intentions behind it, while also noting that "further technical documentation and security research engagements updates are coming soon."