WhatsApp introduces new feature

In particular, users will be able to prohibit others from exporting chat history and automatically downloading photos and videos sent in the application.

As reported, this feature also prevents people from using messages for Meta AI, which can currently be used to ask questions in chat and generate images.

By default, WhatsApp saves photos and videos in a chat to your phone's local storage. You can also send messages from one chat to another in the messenger. With the new feature, this is impossible. 

WhatsApp spokesman Zade Al-Sawa confirmed to The Verge that the feature will still not prevent people from taking screenshots of messages or manually downloading media files from chats. However, WhatsApp says this is a "first version" of the feature and that the company plans to add more protection in the future.

"We believe this feature is best suited for communicating with groups where you may not know everyone well, but are nevertheless sensitive in nature," WhatsApp said in a statement.

You can enable the feature in the settings by clicking on the name of your chat and selecting "Enhanced Chat Privacy".