WhatsApp is continuously working to better protect the privacy of its users. For example, we are working on a feature that will prevent people from taking screenshots of your profile photo.
Bram Veldt
Meta is the parent company of WhatsApp and will probably release a new privacy update. With this update they want to prevent a screenshot from being taken of someone’s profile photo. WhatsApp has previously released privacy updates: you can now protect your voice messages so that they can only be listened to once. WhatsApp also released a new chat lock feature. Through these updates, this popular app makes the use of the app and the user’s privacy increasingly safer.
Limit
This upcoming feature was discovered in the latest WhatsApp beta on Android by WABetaInfo. According to Tom’s Guide, this feature will be added in the Privacypart of it Institutions-menu. While testing the blocking tool, they tried to take a screenshot of a profile photo, but they were not allowed to do so. At the bottom of the screen, they received a notification stating that taking a screenshot was not possible due to app limitations.
Reasons
Five years ago, WhatsApp introduced the option to prevent users from saving other people’s profile photos. This feature was intended to prevent malicious actors from sharing images without the owner’s permission, but taking screenshots bypasses this protection. WABetaInfo suggests that directly blocking the ability to take screenshots allows WhatsApp to further strengthen the concept of user privacy and consent. It appears that this measure is intended to prevent images from being misused for fraud, impersonation or intimidation.