This is an interesting Facebook photo privacy development from protection software house McAfee. Called Social Protection, the Facebook app is designed to make image sharing on the social platform about as private as it can be, by restricting viewing either those images, or to those friends, whom you select. The app is now officially in beta, and you can try it out right now using your Facebook account: here is some help with installation.
Without the tool, it's pretty easy to 'lose control' over image you upload to Facebook. While you can put privacy settings into place to keep strangers from stumbling across your photos on your Facebook page, when you've shared an image with your friends, they can then go on and share it with others, thus meaning it can be downloaded, saved and printed.
Blurred images
The plug-in offers two viewing features:
- The first allows users to blur all the photos they upload to Facebook and permit only the contacts whom the users selects to see them clearly. That's the ultra-safe mode.
- The second option allows a user to select which images will be blurred. This allows all the other photographs to remain visible to Facebook friends, by default.
However, the only way that even those nominated friends will be able to see the photos you've allowed is by installing a McAfee viewing plug-in. They will initially see the blurred thumbnail, but when they click on the link, will receive a notification asking them to install the plug-in if they wish to see clearly the image you've posted. Even with the software installed, any friends you haven't permitted to see a particular image clearly (option 1) still can't, and images on your account (and theirs) are safe from Facebook hackers: the photos are not hosted on Facebook's servers, but on a secured Intel server.
No downloading, saving or printing an image
McAfee says it has also ensured there is no way for friends to download or save the encrypted photos. Even a screen capture tool will record only see a blank screen. Similarly, all attempts to printing the screen containing your protected image will also produce a blank space where the image should be.
The app was demo-ed recently at MacAfee's Santa Clara offices. According to pcworld.com, the process using the app isn't quite as easy as uploading photos directly to Facebook-and, very importantly, McAfee hasn't mentioned whether there will be a mobile component to the app-but the extra step might just be worth the extra protection.