Facebook has introduced screenshot notifications onto its Messenger service as part of a new update.
Mark Zuckerberg, who is the head of Facebook’s parent company Meta, announced a string of updates to the social media’s chat service this week.
As part of the changes, users will be able to get a notification if one of their disappearing messages has been screenshotted by the other user.
People are able to use this feature through Messenger’s ‘secret conversation’ functionality - which is similar to the encrypted messages sent on WhatsApp.
The firm is also adding GIFs, stickers, and reactions to encrypted chats.
Changes will not impact the non-encrypted version of Messenger.
In a Facebook update, Mr Zuckerberg wrote: “New update for end-to-end encrypted Messenger chats so you get a notification if someone screenshots a disappearing message.
“We’re also adding GIFs, stickers and reactions to encrypted chats too.”
The tool is similar to that adopted by Snapchat, where screenshot notifications are sent when grabs are taken of disappearing messages and pictures.
Changes to the service have come as part of “huge investments” into the firm’s focus on privacy.
In a later update, the Meta CEO said: “We’ve made huge investments in strengthening our approach to privacy, including rebuilding our privacy programme and our privacy review process.
“We made updates to bring greater privacy to our products, including end-to-end encrypted backups and disappearing messages on WhatsApp, and end-to-end encrypted voice and video calling on Messenger.
“Over the next few years, we’re focused on building out a major privacy infrastructure project that will encode our privacy commitments at a deeper level of our technical foundation to make them more durable and make product development faster in this evolving environment.”
Don't miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond - Sign up to our daily newsletter here.
