Meta shared a preview of its new Scam Alert system for WhatsApp, which is designed to alert WhatsApp users to potential scam messages and contacts without infringing on their privacy. The system works with WhatsApp’s enhanced privacy environment to better protect users from evolving scam tactics.
Meta said Scam Alert will be an optional feature on WhatsApp, and that it will run via an on-device machine learning model, so no data is sent back to Meta for processing.
That should ensure WhatsApp data remains private, which is an element of the new approach that Meta is very keen to reiterate.
As per Meta: “No message content leaves the device for classification or is auto-reported to WhatsApp, Meta, or anyone else. The feature complements end-to-end encryption while enabling a user-controlled, optional scam alert when the model believes there’s a likely scam.”
If a user chooses to activate Scam Alert, it will download a machine learning model to the user’s device and scan incoming messages from non-contacts in order to cross-check for elements that match known scam patterns.
“The model is trained on patterns observed in scam conversations from reports that users have sent to us,” Meta said. “It performs probabilistic classification based on conversational structure and linguistic signals.”
If the model identifies a message as a likely scam attempt, the user will be shown a warning within the chat, which will only be visible to them.
“From there, the user can decide what to do: block, report, or continue the conversation,” Meta said. “If they decide that a warning is incorrectly flagged, the user can mark the chat as trusted, in which case the warning is removed and Scam Alert will not flag that chat again.”
Meta added that the only data Scam Alert will share with Meta will be related to the frequency of alerts and the accuracy of those warnings, based on how often the user blocks or allows subsequent messages.
Users will also have the voluntary option to share a selection of messages from any conversation flagged as potential scam activity, in order to help educate the detection model.
Essentially, Meta is looking to address the increasing rate of scam contacts on WhatsApp, but is even more keen to ensure that WhatsApp’s strict privacy settings are not violated.
Meta said it’s currently testing Scam Alert on WhatsApp in beta, and will continue iterating and improving on the process before releasing it to more users.
