Recently, Facebook has started testing a new program to protect its user’s profile pictures from other users. Only available in India at the moment, the ‘photo guard’ safety measures are meant to ease the mind of users who are concerned about others gaining access to their profile pictures and using them for other purposes.
The photo security program offers a number of options including preventing users from downloading a person’s profile picture, prevents sharing another’s profile picture, prevents tagging other people in another’s profile picture, and, on the Android platform, it prevents screenshots of profile pictures from the Facebook app.
Although there is no date for the program’s expansion into other countries yet, Facebook has initially conducted research in India and have found 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.” The company hopes this new security feature will help.
When turned on, the safety feature displays a shield image over and blue line around the profile picture. The social media company worked with an Indian illustrator so that the icons are aesthetically pleasing and fit in well with the rest of Facebook’s visual design.
So far their tests in India have shown that profiles with the extra protection features are 75 percent less likely to be downloaded or copied and Facebook hopes to expand these services to other countries soon.
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