Facebook introduces new profile picture controls for India

Facebook announces a big protection plan for profile pictures to ensure the privacy policies. In a move to ensure safety of women and identity theft in India, social networking website Facebook has rolled out a new feature which gives users more control over their profile pictures.

The feature was rolled out by the website after working on the solution over the past year.

In a post written by Facebook Product Manager Aarati Soman, Facebook is piloting new tools that give people in India more control over who can download and share their profile pictures. In addition, the company is also exploring ways where people can more easily add designs to profile pictures.

Facebook also hopes to take these features to other countries, based on the learning it will gather from India. India is the second largest market for Facebook with user base over 160 million people.

What are the New Controls:

People in India will start seeing a step-by-step guide to add an optional profile picture guard. When a user adds this guard:

  • Other people will no longer be able to download, share or send the profile picture in a message on Facebook
  • Those who are not friends on Facebook will not be able to tag anyone, including themselves, in others’ profile picture
  • Where possible, taking a screenshot of profile pictures on Facebook will be prevented. Currently available only on Android devices.
  • A blue border and shield around your profile picture will be displayed as a visual cue of protection
  • Dissuading Misuse:

    Based on preliminary tests, Facebook says they’ve learned that when someone adds an extra design layer to their profile picture, other people are at least 75% less likely to copy that picture.

    Facebook partnered with Jessica Singh, an illustrator who took inspiration from traditional Indian textile designs such as bandhani and kantha, to create designs for people to add to their profile picture. “If someone suspects that a picture marked with one of these designs is being misused, they can report it to Facebook and we will use the design to help determine whether it should be removed from our community,” said Ms. Soman as published in The Hindu.