WhatsApp has introduced a new update that prevents users from capturing a screenshot of a contact’s profile picture.
According to Android Police, recent updates to WhatsApp on Android now prevent users from taking a screenshot of a contact profile picture, instead displaying an error message.
When trying to take a screenshot when browsing full-screen contact profile photographs, our testing shows no warning notice, but instead a blank screen. Though this functionality was detected in development some time ago, there is no mechanism to stop this behavior. When this reaches the stable app version, a warning message might be included.
You can still snap a picture of the expandable profile preview or mini-profile when browsing all WhatsApp conversations, even with this improved privacy modification. This is a pixelated rendition of your full-screen profile picture.
According to AP, this appears to be standard behavior and isn’t exclusive to a particular app build. Some are reporting similar behavior on previous editions of WhatsApp, whereas my cellphone is running the beta version v2.24.6.16. This suggests that the feature is not limited to particular builds, but rather is being released through server-side updates.
Meta probably wants to avoid impersonation and other privacy issues, which is why it is prohibiting screenshots of WhatsApp profile pictures. This feature is currently absent from other cross-platform messaging platforms, such as Signal and Telegram in particular.
Go to Settings > Privacy > Profile Photo to hide your WhatsApp profile photo for even more privacy. You can modify who can view your profile from here.
