WhatsApp to block screenshots for personal content

Despite introducing the Disappearing Messages feature, WhatsApp hasn’t done much to prevent the retention of viewed messages or files, until now.

For example, even if you check the setting that prevents saving the conversation in your WhatsApp history, you can’t be sure that the person on the other end isn’t keeping their own “evidence” by generating screenshots of the messages or photos displayed. While this is an obvious problem, the solution is not exactly easy to find, and close collaboration with the developers of the supported mobile platforms is required. As for the compromise solution – alerting the sender to the taking of a screenshot by the person on the other end, the approach may only fuel a possible adversarial discussion, without preventing that action.

But according to an announcement made by CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself, you will soon no longer be able to get screenshots that capture your WhatsApp conversation screen if the message you receive is marked for single view.

The implementation could be similar to technical solutions already adopted with some Home Banking apps, meaning that the message window will be somewhat visually delimited as protected space, and content will be rendered without the aid of graphical acceleration features, scrolling will appear somewhat slower than usual.

In addition to the announced functionality, the next WhatsApp release looks like it will also receive aesthetic cosmetics, adopting the new dynamic icon format introduced with Android 13. The changes are present as of version 2.22.18.16 of the WhatsApp Beta client, and it may take some time for the changes to be carried over to the official version of the app.