Facebook's 'profile picture guard' may not mitigate the problem entirely, says experts

Seeing the growing misuse of profile pictures through Facebook, the social networking site has given its users a ‘ **profile picture guard** ’ option to enable protection of their current profile pictures from anti-social elements who are on a look out for misusing these pictures without the owner’s permission. Through this option firstly, strangers, people who are not friends on Facebook, cannot tag on other Facebook user’s profile picture. Secondly, this guard cuts down the option of downloading or taking screenshots of the profile picture, even if one is friends on Facebook. In association with organizations like Centre for Social Research, Learning Links, Breakthrough, and Youth Ki Awaaz Facebook came up with the idea of providing this option. However, Facebook’s humble efforts come with certain loopholes. Rakshit Tandon, a cyber security expert, said, “To mitigate cyber problems, firstly, the user has to be aware of their privacy settings. Cyber crimes extend from scams to the creation of fake profiles. The attempt to curb the menace might help a new user, and put some damage control but there are WhatsAap or Instagram as well where such problems exist anyways.” Facebook’s new control provides a blue band with a shield icon around the picture. Prashant Mali, a cyber law expert, believes that there is rampant misuse of social media pictures, especially in the case of girls who are often subject to abuse. When it comes to protection of people from these cyber crimes, he says, “In India Section 66C and Section 66D of The IT Act, 2000 protects us against Identity Theft and cheating by impersonation. Section 354D of the IPC protects us against cyber stalking and in all the above crimes punishment is three years of imprisonment. However, he feels, “Facebook should  use Advance Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence techniques coupled with historic behavioural data analysis of cyber crimes in different countries.” Meanwhile, according to Facebook newsroom, they have partnered with an illustrator, Jessica Singh, who took inspiration from bandhani and kantha to add an extra layer of design which, according to their tests, have found to be 75 percent less likely to be copied. Mali, a cyber law advocate, further added, “Facebook should spend 20 percent of their revenue in social well-being of social citizens hosted on their social networking platform, I don’t see that happening rest what they do are just baby steps protecting their business interest and brand name.” After testing the method in India, Facebook is expected to roll out the features in other countries.