Scammers often steal profile photos to pretend to be other people. (Image: clone)
WhatsApp no longer allows you to print (screen capture) your profile picture on Android phones. When trying to record a photo whether from saved contacts or not, the following message appears: “Unable to capture screen due to security policy”.
This measure makes life difficult for scammers who usually “steal” photos from WhatsApp profiles to pretend to be the person and ask for money from the victim’s relatives and friends.
The new feature is only available in the Android version of the app. As of now, there are no predictions for when (and if) the tool will be released on iOS – the beta version of WhatsApp for iPhone does not have this feature yet.
Blocking prints on the profile picture screen appeared in the beta version of WhatsApp for Android in February. When a user opens a contact's profile picture and tries to take a screenshot, they will receive one of the following warnings: “Can't capture screen due to security policy” or “This app doesn't allow screenshots.”
This blocking only works when the photo is accessed through profile information, which opens when you click on the user's name, or by zooming in on the thumbnail available when opening the photo through the contacts list. If you try to take a screenshot of the thumbnail, you will be able to record the screenshot without any “issues”. The problem is that the image will be of lower quality.
Anti scams
One use for this feature, in addition to providing more privacy for profile photos, is to combat fraud attempts. Without access to the highest quality image, fraudsters will have a difficult time trying to impersonate someone else.
This technique is commonly applied to steal money from a person's family and acquaintances. Generally, scammers contact potential victims using the WhatsApp profile picture of the person they are trying to impersonate.
Criminals exploiting the profile picture say they have a new number and need to make a payment. They invent some excuse that they cannot make pix and ask the victim to make payment to unknown account.
As we said, it is still possible to capture the screen with a thumbnail. The best protection to not have your profile picture used for scams is to hide your WhatsApp profile picture for those who are not saved in your contacts.
