• Meta has made a flurry of announcements to kick off its first-ever LlamaCon.
• It is testing out a new Private Processing feature for WhatsApp.
• The tool will allow WhatsApp users to test out generative AI capabilities while ensuring data remains private, according to Meta.

Meta kicked off its first-ever LlamaCon yesterday, with the two-day-long event focused on all things AI from the tech giant. One of the key focuses of LlamaCon is security and privacy, which has become an increasingly important consideration for companies rolling out new generative AI capabilities, large language models (LLMs), and platforms each month.

In the case of Meta, it has announced a new Private Processing tool that it is trying out within WhatsApp.

It is described as a new technology designed to, “support people’s needs and aspirations to leverage AI in a secure and privacy-preserving way.”

Put more plainly, it will allow WhatsApp users to test out generative AI capabilities and features without any concern about data or personal information being compromised, according to Meta. This is said to offer the same peace of mind that end-to-end encrypted chats on the messaging platform offers, but for generative AI.

“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,” Meta explained.

“In other words, Private Processing will allow users to leverage powerful AI features, 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,” it added.

In an effort to be more transparent with its work, the big tech firm also outlined three core tenets that underpin the foundation of Private Processing:

• “Confidential processing: Private Processing must be built in such a way that prevents any other system from accessing user’s data — including Meta, WhatsApp or any third party — while in processing or in transit to Private Processing.
• Enforceable guarantees: Attempts to modify that confidential processing guarantee must cause the system to fail closed or become publicly discoverable via verifiable transparency.
• Verifiable transparency: Users and security researchers must be able to audit the behavior of Private Processing to independently verify our privacy and security guarantees.”

As for additional layers of security being added to the mix for this environment, Meta noted that cyber attackers targeting specific Private Processing users would not be able to do so without targeting the entire system. It added that the system will not retain access to user messages once a session is complete, to ensure attackers cannot gain access to historical requests or responses.

While we understand what Meta is trying to say here, it also feels like an invitation to see just how much the Private Processing system can bend before it breaks. It is likely why Meta has announced an expansion of the scope of its Bug Bounty program to include Private Processing.

More details on that, as well as the release of this new tool for WhatsApp users to test out, is still in the offing, with Meta noting that accessibility will be rolled out in the coming weeks.