Facebook has been the leading social media site for years now since it was created by Mark Zuckerberg with an aim of connecting people from around the world. True to their goal and objective, Facebook has brought the world together making the world a small community.

One of the major factors that has contributed to the growth of the Facebook bringing more people together is the use of Facebook’s profile photo tool that allows users to add their own images to the profile section on their accounts. Facebook’s profile photo tool enables users, find friends and grow their connections more easily. This is because people are able to connect more with a person they see rather than believing to be communicating to a person whom they can’t see their image.

However, as Facebook continued to grow, there has been a rise on misuse of Facebook’s profile pictures. Some of the ways in which Facebook profile pictures have been misused is by using other people’s profile pictures as mask on their names to perform horrendous actions on the internet tarnishing the reputation of the owner of the profile picture, use of Facebook profile pictures setting up shady posts that do not showcase a users self-respect going against the user’s morals.

The rise of misuse of Facebook’s profile picture tool led the company to introduce a new tool to be used to protect users profile pictures from being stolen by others unknowingly for who knows what purpose. Facebook has began testing the new tool in India after conducting research alongside other Indian safety organizations. The aim of this action is to help users have control over their profile pictures and help them feel safe online. The research revealed that some women choose not to share profile pictures that include their faces anywhere on the internet because they’re concerned about what may happen to their photos from being used as scams, being used in dating sites to fake another person’s identity and creation of immoral random pictures of women, the list doesn’t stop there.

The new tool has a step by step guide on how to protect their Facebook profile pictures. The new tool known as “PROFILE PICTURE GUARD” can be viewed from the News Feed section with an option to turn on the ‘profile picture guard’. To prevent others from stealing the profile picture:

Facebook will display a blue border and a shield around your picture to indicate that it’s protected. Facebook has placed measures to prevent anyone from taking a screenshot of any other person’s profile picture, however, this has only been implemented on Android phones. People you’re not friends with on Facebook won’t be able to tag anyone, including themselves, in your profile picture. Users will not also be able to share, download or send a users profile picture via messages on Facebook.

To ensure maximum protection of any user’s Facebook profile picture, Facebook teamed up with an illustrator Jessica Singh who uses traditional Indian designs to create designs users can use on their Facebook profile picture.

According to Facebook’s preliminary tests, they learned that when someone adds an extra design layer to their profile picture, other people are at least 75% less likely to copy that picture. If someone suspects that a picture marked with one of these designs is being misused, they can report it to Facebook and they will use the design to help determine whether it should be removed from Facebook’s community.

Facebook hopes to roll out the feature to all other countries based on what they learn from their pilot phase implementation in India, since such acts can happen to anyone. This will go a long way to reduce corruption of user’s reputation on the internet.