This Instagram New Feature will make your Account more Secure

Social Media has become a vital part of one’s life and identity. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn - all these platform have emerged as a projection of our lives - a means to maintain your social life and mark your presence. Along with staying in touch with your friends and colleagues, Social Media platforms now also offer a variety of services - they publish breaking news, they keep you updated with latest happening across the world; and they are a your guide to life. But the same platforms are also goldmines for hackers with abundant personal, sensitive information. So, it is critical to secure our accounts from getting hacked.

No matter how many secure features we use and implement, loopholes are found by cybercriminals. A perfect example is : Facebook, Instagram and other sites have disabled the option of downloading images, as they are used to bully users online. However, criminals have started taking screenshots of these images and morph them to blackmail or abuse. Keeping the same in mind, Instagram has released a new privacy and security features. The app will now alert users when someone takes a screenshot of their images. This is not new in the market - Snapchat has similar features. Snapchat is said to be by far the most secure (comparatively) social media platform as the images and videos sent across on this platform get deleted automatically.

This Instagram’s new feature only works for the new temporary direct messages enabled with the app’s last big update, i.e., if someone takes a screenshot of an image which you have shared publicly, you will not receive any notification. These temporary messages usually disappear after the person received, views it. Else, it will get automatically deleted in 24 hours. Still, this is a welcome feature as users send personal images only on temporary direct messages. Though this doesn’t stop cybercriminals from taking a screenshot of the image or record it through other devices, at least the feature is deterrent against people sharing photos or messages you don’t want to be shared. The new Instagram feature can stop cyberbullying to an extent. Currently it is not clear if this feature is available to everyone or only a small test batch, but Instagram users are welcoming this change.

On the flipside, there are users (me being one of them) who consider the security and privacy features implemented by social media sites are relatively incompetent. Each platform should take the responsibility of protecting their user’s identity and privacy. Strict legal measures must be taken against anyone who seem to be violating the Privacy Policies.