Facebook`s new `Profile Picture Guard` feature makes your profile photos much harder to steal. Photo courtesy of Facebook
Photo theft is a big problem on Facebook, and the social network is finally doing a little something to combat it. Starting with its users in India, the Silicon Valley company is testing a feature called `Profile Picture Guard,` which prevents other people from saving or even taking a screenshot of your profile pic.
As the headline suggests, Profile Picture Guard is still in the testing phase. In fact, it`s currently only available to users in India, the country that Facebook says inspired the feature.
`In our research with people and safety organizations in India, we´ve heard that some women choose not to share profile pictures that include their faces anywhere on the internet because they`re concerned about what may happen to their photos,` explains Facebook. So they designed a little peace of mind.
Here`s a look at how it works:
As you can see, the feature works in four ways. (1) It prevents people from saving, sharing, or (Android only for now) taking a screenshot of your photo. (2) It allows only you and your Facebook friends to tag the photo. (3) It adds a blue border and shield icon to your photo, indicating it`s `protected.` And (4) if you so choose, you can overlay a watermark design across the entire shot.
Combine all 4 deterrents, and its far less likely you`ll find your profile pic on some random website. How much less likely? Facebook did some testing:
`Based on preliminary tests, we´ve learned that when someone adds an extra design layer to their profile picture, other people are at least 75% less likely to copy that picture.`
Facebook `hopes` to expand the feature to other countries soon. For our part, we hope they expand its scope even sooner. Protecting your profile picture from saving, sharing, and screenshots is a great first step; however, for the photographers out there, this kind of univer ...
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