WhatsApp Advanced Chat Privacy

What WhatsApp says the setting does

WhatsApp’s Advanced Chat Privacy blocks three things in a chat where it is switched on: exporting the chat, automatically downloading its media to phones, and using its messages for AI features. WhatsApp announced it on 23 April 2025 in Introducing Advanced Chat Privacy: “This new setting available in both chats and groups helps prevent others from taking content outside of WhatsApp for when you may want extra privacy. When the setting is on, you can block others from exporting chats, auto-downloading media to their phone, and using messages for AI features.” WhatsApp said the feature “is best used when talking with groups where you may not know everyone closely but are nevertheless sensitive in nature, like talking about health challenges in a support group”.

WhatsApp is now replacing the setting with an expanded one. WhatsApp’s help centre article About restricted chat says: “On the latest version of WhatsApp, Advanced chat privacy is being replaced by a new and expanded Restricted chat, which includes an additional control that prevents people from using linked devices in chats.” When Restricted chat is on, people in the chat:

• “Can’t save media to their device gallery automatically.”
• “Can’t export the chat.”
• “Can’t use Meta AI features in this chat.”
• “Can’t use linked devices for this chat. This helps to prevent people in the chat from using unofficial clients or AI agents to access it.”

Three details matter for anyone running a group. The setting is per chat: “Participants in the chat must enable Restricted chat for each individual or group chat you want to apply this setting to”, and once on it “applies to all messages in the chat”. In groups it belongs to the admins: “In group chats, group admins can enable restricted chat. In individual chats, either participant can enable restricted chat.” And existing chats do not change by themselves: “If you currently have Advanced chat privacy turned on in a chat, that chat will not update to Restricted chat automatically.”

What the setting does not do

The setting is narrower than its name suggests, and WhatsApp is careful about what it promises.

• It does not list screenshots. WhatsApp’s four restrictions concern automatic media saving, export, Meta AI and linked devices. Taking a screenshot, copying a message or saving a single item by hand is not among them.
• It does not change encryption. The help centre adds: “Your personal messages are always protected with end-to-end encryption.” Encryption was already the baseline; the setting is a layer on top.
• It does not govern Meta AI in general. Viral social media posts have claimed that Meta AI reads every chat unless the setting is switched on. WhatsApp’s help centre says otherwise: “Meta AI can only access the messages people choose to send it. This is true whether restricted chat is on or off.”
• It is not guaranteed for everyone in the chat. “Users who aren’t on the latest version of WhatsApp may still be able to use unofficial clients or AI agents in chats. When enabling this feature, you won’t be notified if someone in the chat isn’t on the latest version of WhatsApp.”
• It is not available everywhere. Restricted chat “isn’t available in chats with businesses that choose to use WhatsApp's parent company, Meta, to securely store messages and respond to customers on its behalf.”
• It is not a retention setting. It controls how content leaves the chat, not how long it stays. Disappearing messages are a separate setting, covered in the WhatsApp retention policy guide.

Above all, it does not give anyone a copy that WhatsApp holds. WhatsApp’s help centre article Back up or restore your chats says: “we can't restore your chats for you because your chat history isn’t stored on our servers.” With the setting on or off, the conversation exists on the devices of the people in it and in any backups they have made to their own Google or iCloud accounts, not on WhatsApp’s servers.

What it changes for an organisation’s work group

For a school, charity or care provider whose staff or volunteers use a WhatsApp group for work, the setting cuts both ways, and both effects are real.

What it helps. Photographs and videos shared in a work group no longer land automatically in members’ phone galleries, and from there in their personal cloud backups. That matters when the group carries pictures of pupils’ work, a resident’s pressure area or a beneficiary’s letter. Blocking linked devices keeps the chat off a shared computer left logged in. And no member can drop the group’s messages into Meta AI from inside the chat. Each of those is a step towards the security UK GDPR Article 5(1)(f) expects: personal data “processed in a manner that ensures appropriate security” (UK GDPR Article 5).

What it removes. WhatsApp’s How to export your chat history describes the export as the way to send a chat’s history out of the app, “Without media” or “Include media”. It is the only tool a member has for producing a thread whole. With the setting on, nobody in the chat can use it, so no member can produce the thread whole; WhatsApp’s list of restrictions does not mention screenshots or saving single items by hand. For most of a group’s life that makes no difference. It makes all the difference on the day the organisation needs the conversation: a subject access request, a complaint, a disciplinary investigation, a safeguarding review or a claim.

The setting therefore moves a decision about the organisation’s records into the hands of whoever turns it on. Under Restricted chat in a group, that is an admin, who may be a manager or may be a volunteer who set the group up on their own phone. In a chat still on Advanced Chat Privacy, check the group’s settings to see who can change it. Either way, the decision is rarely taken by the person who will later have to answer for the record.

Subject access requests and evidence when the export is blocked

The organisation’s duties do not change when the setting is on. The ICO’s subject access request Q&As for employers say that where a company uses platforms “such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter and chat channels on Microsoft Teams for business purposes, then you are the controller for the information processed on those pages”, and “If you receive a SAR, you must search these platforms for any personal information if it falls within scope.” The clock is the same: “You must respond to a SAR from a worker without delay and within one month of receipt of the request”, extendable by up to two months for a complex request. What the setting changes is what the search can produce: a member searching their phone cannot offer an export.

The same is true of evidence. The guide to WhatsApp messages as evidence explains why an export, which carries every message with its timestamp and sender as the app recorded them, is better evidence of sequence and timing than a screenshot, which shows what a screen displayed at one moment. A group with the setting on can supply only the weaker kind while it stays on.

Three practical steps follow when a request or claim arrives and a relevant group has the setting on:

1. Record the position. Note which groups are relevant, whether the setting is on in each, who the admins are, and the date you checked. That record is part of explaining what you searched.
2. Preserve before anything changes. Tell the members who hold relevant messages not to delete them or leave the group, as you would for any request or contemplated claim.
3. Decide deliberately whether to switch it off. If the organisation needs a complete copy, turning the setting off so that a member can export is a decision for the data protection lead, to be recorded with its reason and explained to the group. The export then still has to be reviewed and redacted before anything is disclosed, because a group chat is mostly other people’s personal data.

If the setting cannot be changed, because the admin has left or will not cooperate, answer the request with what you hold, say what you searched and what you could not reach, and treat it as the prompt to change where that work happens.

Should a work group use it? Deciding as an organisation

The setting is a reasonable choice for some work groups and a poor one for others, and the choice should be the organisation’s, written into its staff messaging or WhatsApp policy, not left to whichever admin finds it in the menu. Four questions settle it:

1. What does the group carry? A shift-swap or logistics group with no personal information about the people the organisation serves gains little from the setting and loses little either. A group where photographs or details of pupils, residents or service users appear benefits from the block on automatic media saving, although the better answer is that those details should not be in the group at all.
2. Will the organisation ever need the thread? If decisions, concerns or complaints arrive there, the organisation will one day need a complete copy, and the export block works against it.
3. Who controls the setting? If the answer is a member of staff who might leave, or a volunteer on a personal phone, the organisation does not control it.
4. What is the organisation’s own copy? If there is none, the setting is a choice between two ways of not having a record.

Write the answer down, tell the group, and make it part of the admin’s responsibilities. If the policy says work groups carry logistics only, the setting is largely irrelevant; if it allows anything more, the policy has to say where the lasting record of that work lives.

A setting that protects the chat from the organisation too

Advanced Chat Privacy and Restricted chat do what WhatsApp says they do: they help keep what is said in a chat inside the chat. The difficulty for an organisation is that, from the chat’s point of view, the organisation is outside. A setting built to stop content leaving a support group also stops the school’s data protection officer receiving an export of the staff group, stops the care provider assembling the thread in which a family’s complaint first arrived, and stops the charity producing the conversation in which a volunteer first raised a concern.

None of that is a flaw in the feature. It is the clearest demonstration of a point that applies whether the setting is on or off: an end-to-end-encrypted consumer app is designed so that nobody outside the chat holds the conversation, and WhatsApp says plainly that the chat history “isn’t stored on our servers”. Turning the setting off restores a member’s ability to export their own copy, if they are still in the group and still have the phone. It does not give the organisation a record it controls.

The question for the next leadership or trustee meeting is therefore not whether to allow a WhatsApp setting. It is this: for each group where our work is done, if a request arrived tomorrow, who would produce the conversation, from which phone, and in what form?

Questions people ask

What does the Advanced chat privacy feature do on WhatsApp?

WhatsApp’s Advanced Chat Privacy stops people in a chat from exporting it, automatically downloading its media to their phones, and using its messages for AI features. On the latest version of WhatsApp it is being replaced by Restricted chat, which adds a block on using linked devices for the chat.

Why would someone turn on advanced chat privacy on WhatsApp?

To make it harder for anyone in a chat to take its content outside WhatsApp. WhatsApp says the feature is “best used when talking with groups where you may not know everyone closely but are nevertheless sensitive in nature, like talking about health challenges in a support group or organizing your community about something important to you.”

Does advanced chat privacy stop screenshots?

WhatsApp does not say so. Its help centre lists four restrictions – no automatic saving of media to the gallery, no export, no Meta AI features in the chat and no linked devices – and screenshots are not among them. Treat the setting as a block on bulk copying, not on every copy.

How do I stop advanced chat privacy in WhatsApp?

Open the chat, tap its name to open the chat information screen and turn the setting off there; WhatsApp’s blog says the setting is reached by “tapping the chat name, then tapping on Advanced Chat Privacy”. WhatsApp’s help centre notes that “If you turn Advanced chat privacy off, the setting will appear as Restricted chat going forward”, and in a group only admins can turn Restricted chat on.

Should I turn on advanced chat privacy?

For a personal chat about something sensitive, it adds protection at little cost. For a group used for an organisation’s work, it also blocks the export that subject access requests and evidence often depend on, so the decision should follow the organisation’s policy and its data protection lead, not one member’s preference.

Where to read the official descriptions, and your next step

WhatsApp is the only authority on what its settings do, and they change: read About restricted chat and the announcement of Advanced Chat Privacy before relying on a detail. For the organisation’s duties, the ICO’s subject access request Q&As for employers are the starting point; the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 is amending UK GDPR in stages, so check the date on any ICO page you read. Quotations are from those pages as read on 3 October 2026.

This guide is practical guidance, not legal advice. Where a request or claim already involves a group with the setting on, take advice from your data protection lead before changing anything.

Then do one thing: ask the admin of each WhatsApp group used for your organisation’s work whether Advanced Chat Privacy or Restricted chat is on, and write the answer next to the group’s name.