Removing screenshot alerts from Session

Screenshot alerts are a very popular feature in apps these days, including messengers, photo sharing apps (like Snapchat), and other social media platforms. 

These alerts are designed to notify you whenever someone takes a screenshot of a message or attachment (such as a photo) you shared with them, helping to prevent people’s images or messages being saved or shared without consent.

On the surface, screenshot alerts sound like a good thing for user privacy. However, in reality they are actually very impractical and carry serious privacy risks. These risks are explained in more detail below; and due to concerns about these risks, Screenshot Notifications are being removed from Session. 

Unreliable and inconsistent implementations

Implementations for screenshot notification vary significantly across different devices or operating systems. For example, while iOS and Android provide relatively good tooling for detecting screenshots, desktop operating systems (such as Windows) lack this tooling. 

For a cross-platform app like Session, this may mean that a user would be notified if a chat partner screenshotted their conversation on iOS, but not if they took the screenshot using MacOS.

False sense of privacy

Screenshot alerts do not actually prevent users from being able to take a screenshot of an app or screen. Even for the operating systems which do offer support for this type of functionality, exploits or workarounds are still possible, such as taking a photograph of the device’s physical screen, using specialized third party applications which enable ‘private screenshots’ (which avoid triggering notifications), or using screen recording (as opposed to a screenshot).

This means that screenshot alerts are less useful from a harm prevention perspective, as they do not actually prevent misuse or non-consensual sharing. However, the existence of the feature may give users a false sense of security which doesn’t match reality.

In general, it is best to assume it is possible your chat partner may re-share content and be mindful about information that you share online. Ultimately, security theater features (such as screenshot alerts) may actually cause users to unknowingly participate in high-risk behavior.

Inverted information leak

There are legitimate situations where it is appropriate to screenshot a conversation, message, or attachment. For example, this may be required by whistleblowers or journalists to archive information, or for regular people who want to record or report inappropriate behavior from other users.

In these situations, screenshot alerts may actually impact the privacy of the screenshotter and put them at unnecessary risk.

Removing screenshot alerts from Session

The decision has been made to remove screenshot alerts from Session on all platforms. Although some members of the community valued this feature, the overall utility it offered is not outweighed by the risks it carries (especially given its unreliability). 

However, screen security is still extremely important — especially given that operating systems are rolling out functionality which may conduct automated recording of your screen (for example, Windows Recall). 

In response to the threat this poses to user security and privacy, Session contributors are currently working on a feature for Desktop that protects your Session instance from being monitored by screenshots or screen recording on your own desktop device. When this feature is enabled, Session windows in all screenshots or screen recordings will be completely concealed. More details on this feature will be shared here on the Session blog closer to the time of release.

Note that this screen security feature is not the same feature as screenshot alerts, however it is an important privacy protection against the emergence of embedded AI in our devices and operating systems.