Last week, Meta announced three new privacy features to be included in a new WhatsApp update: silently leaving a group (and a record of past participants), choosing who can see when you’re online on WhatsApp, and blocking screenshots. of screen.
Screenshot blocking is a technique to prevent users from taking screenshots to view single-view images and videos. It seems that this feature will come sooner rather than later, as the feature is being tested in the Android beta.
No screenshots in media
The addition of single-view photos and videos is one of the most interesting additions to Meta’s messaging app in recent times. On paper, it’s a great way to share photos or media files that don’t need to have a permanent digital record. However, it has a problem and it was the fact that, as these files have an icon that indicates that they are going to be single-view, we could always be tempted to take a screenshot and keep a local copy of said content.
According to WhatsApp, “we now increase protection by enabling screenshot blocking for single view messages. This feature is currently in testing and we hope to make it available to users soon.”
According to the information offered by WABetaInfo, this feature, which they hope will be available soon, already works with the beta version of Android. In it, a message is displayed introducing the new single view version and explaining that, thanks to this new version, it is impossible to take screenshots to view images and videos once.
With this official feature, when the recipient takes a screenshot to view single-view images and videos, the screenshot is automatically locked, but the sender does not receive a notification about it.
Obviously, the recipient can still take a photo using a secondary phone or camera, so there will always be a way to do it with a second device. However, pending the release of the update that includes this option, it raises doubts about its effectiveness.
First of all, within the device itself, there are also tools that allow you to make video screen recordings, so you could later take screenshots of the recorded videos. There are also other third-party apps that often bypass Android’s native locks to prevent screenshots , with examples being LongScreenShot.
