The Site The Information is advancing information that Facebook is investigating ways to analyze encrypted data.

Facebook has confirmed that it is creating a specialized Artificial Intelligence team to "study ways to analyze encrypted data without decrypting it," thus preserving users' privacy.

In theory, this means that Facebook would be able to access WhatsApp users' messages without being aware of the content of those messages and use that information to target ads.

About the project, a Facebook spokesperson praised that the research is still in its early stages and that it is too early to know the applications of this kind of project.