Screenshots On iOS: Confide Messaging App Launching ScreenShield Kit For Developers

Encrypted messaging app Confide is boosting its efforts against unwanted screenshots on iOS devices, the platform announced Wednesday.

Confide was previously able to block screenshots on Android, Mac and PCs, and it has now found a way to prevent screenshots on iOS devices.

Before, Confide tried to protect against screenshots on iOS devices by allowing the recipient to capture a single line of text or a piece of an image or document. This week, Confide introduced its ScreenShield technology to offer screenshot protection on all media formats, including text, images, videos, documents, stickers and more.

The ScreenShield technology allows users to see an app’s content on the screen but disallows them from taking screenshots of it. Instead, the app’s new feature captures a blank screen. The technology also protects against iOS 11’s new screen recording feature, AirPlay’s screen mirroring tool and QuickTime screen recording. It also prevents people from taking screenshots from the app while on app switcher mode or when using Xcode.

“While there’s a lot of technology under the hood that makes ScreenShield possible, the great news is that there are no strange gimmicks for users (e.g., it doesn’t require them to hold their finger on the screen) — it just works as expected,” Confide said in a post about the new technology.

Users can now use the new ScreenShield technology by downloading the latest version of the Confide app.

The platform released a video on how the ScreenShield feature works:

While Confide aims to protect against unwanted screenshots, it’s worth noting that apps don’t protect against photographs with a second device with a camera.

Confide is planning to share its new technology by launching the new ScreenShield SDK. The ScreenShieldKit will allow third-party developers to use the feature across different apps and categories.

“We envision ScreenShieldKit being used in apps that utilize secure messaging, secure file sharing, virtual data rooms, and DRM or watermarking,” Confide said. “But we’re also excited to see completely new and innovative apps being created now that screenshot-proof technology exists for iOS app developers."

Besides ScreenShield, Confide takes other approaches towards keeping users’ conversations safe. Messages on the app disappear after they have been read on mobile devices. The app also notifies a user when a screenshot was attempted.

The secure messaging app came into the spotlight last year when it was reported that President Donald Trump and his administration were using the app to communicate privately to avoid leaks to the press. Trump and his administration reportedly also used the encrypted messaging app Signal. Meanwhile, a lawsuit was filed against Confide last year. The suit claimed the app failed to prevent screenshots of conversations from being taken by a person using the app on a desktop computer.