WhatsApp has taken several steps in recent years to bolster the security of its platform and deliver a safer and more secure chat experience. With view-once media, you can use WhatsApp to share private photos and videos with your friends or family without worrying about them forwarding the content to others. They cannot even take screenshots of the view-once media. To further boost user privacy on its platform, Meta is now rolling out screenshot blocking for profile pictures on WhatsApp.
WhatsApp was spotted working on screenshot blocking for profile pictures in February 2024. While Meta has yet to announce the feature’s rollout officially, it appears to be testing it widely with a server-side push. One of my AP colleague’s family members reports being unable to take a screenshot of the display picture of their WhatsApp contacts on the latest stable build of the app. WhatsApp shows an error saying it can’t take a screenshot due to app restrictions.
On my Pixel 8 Pro running WhatsApp beta for Android v2.24.6.15, I can take a screenshot, but the user’s display picture appears blank. Android Police editors Manuel and Dallas are also seeing the same behavior. This has nothing to do with the other user being on the latest WhatsApp release or whether they are using an iPhone or Android.
Screenshot blocking for display pictures seems to be enabled by default; so far, I have not found any option to toggle it off. This could presumably change when WhatsApp rolls out the feature publicly. Do note that you can take a screenshot of the mini popup which appears when you tap on a contact’s display photo from the chat list.
You can obviously click a picture of the profile photo from another phone’s camera. Or you can use WhatsApp Web or the desktop app to take a screenshot of the person’s display picture from your PC. Still, this privacy feature from WhatsApp should make the lives of scammers and stalkers difficult. For utmost privacy, you can hide your profile picture on WhatsApp from everyone by navigating to Settings > Privacy > Profile Photo.
Once Meta officially rolls out screenshot blocking for profile pictures, it will have an edge over Signal. While the latter is a more privacy-focused communication platform, it does not prevent users from taking screenshots of display pictures. Even Telegram lacks an option to prevent profile picture screenshot blocking.
Given the rise of scammers on WhatsApp, screenshot blocking for profile pictures is a welcome change. And since it will apparently be enabled by default, it should immediately benefit a majority of users on the platform.
Maybe if we start telling people the brain is an app they will start using it!
