Facebook has introduced a new protection feature on profile pictures in India, ensuring that people cannot copy, share or misuse the images. Users that activate this profile guarding feature will be assured that their images will not be able to send, share or download by other people.
Those that opt in will get a blue shield border around their images which will prevent other users from taking screenshots of users’ profile picture. Facebook mention that after hearing from Indian social and safety organisations, that some women in the country choose not to upload their picture as a form of safety. The social media network are conducting tests that would cut down this issue, an example would be, adding a design overlay to a picture would reduce the misuse of the image by 75 percent. Users can add those layers through Facebook’s system, users can still use a laptop or desktop to grab the pictures, but the blue border is used as a visual cue rather than a hard barrier for now.
Currently, this feature is only available in India, and we hope that it would also come to our shores as there have been multiple reports of identity theft here in Malaysia.