Facebook Wants to Stop People From Stealing Your Profile Pics

Facebook Wants to Stop People From Stealing Your Profile Pics. Worried that someone is going to steal your Facebook profile photo and do all kinds of bad things with it? Facebook on Wednesday announced it has begun testing new tools in India to give privacy-conscious individuals more control over who can download and share their profile photos. In a blog post, Facebook Product Manager Aarati Soman pointed out that profile photos are important because they help people find friends, but said not everyone feels safe adding one. So now, if you live in India, you'll have the option to add a "profile picture guard," which will prevent other people from being able to download, share or send your image in a message on Facebook. Finally, when you have this guard up, Facebook will display a blue border and shield around your profile photo as a "visual cue of protection," Soman wrote. Meanwhile, Facebook is also exploring ways to let people more easily add designs to their profile pictures, which it says could be helpful in deterring misuse. "Based on preliminary tests, we've learned that when someone adds an extra design layer to their profile picture, other people are at least 75 percent less likely to copy that picture," Soman wrote. The company has partnered with illustrator Jessica Singh, who created some designs, inspired by traditional Indian textiles, that people can now add to their profile photo. More from PCMag Angela Moscaritolo