WhatsApp has added a new layer of privacy for its users, making sure their profile picture is not misused by taking screenshots.
WhatsApp has already blocked people from taking screenshots of one-view photos or videos, and now the same feature is being enabled for your photos on the messaging app as well.
Taking a screenshot is a serious invasion of a person’s privacy and in most cases you don’t even come to know when someone does that with your picture.
But if that does happen with your profile picture on WhatsApp, the platform won’t give you an alert about the action, but ensure that the resulting screenshot of the picture is blank and they only see a black screen in front of them.
That’s what some people have noticed about the new feature, which hasn’t rolled out to everyone just yet but we expect that to happen in the next few days or even weeks.
As we noticed with a recent WhatsApp Android beta version 2.24.4.25, the messaging app informs the owner with a message that says, “Can’t take a screenshot due to app restrictions.”
Facebook also has a similar tool called Profile Picture guard that blocks others from taking a screenshot of the photo.
We’re not sure if and when iPhone users can expect the feature to roll out for their profile.
Having this feature will give WhatsApp a big advantage over its rivals like Signal and Telegram that don’t have this tool.