“Social Protection” App Adds Additional Privacy Controls for your Facebook Photos

If you love Facebook-stalking through old photo albums on the site, you might be in for a surprise in a few weeks. McAfee and Intel are releasing a new Facebook application that will add additional privacy layers for Facebook photos. The app, McAfee Social Protection, will be available as a browser plug-in for Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome for PCs at the end of August, with Mac, Apple iOS, and Android to be added by the end of the year, according to Mashable.

The app will give users more control over who sees their pictures, and also prevent people from downloading pictures from Facebook. It will even prevent would-be picture grabbers from taking screenshots, displaying a padlock graphic if anyone tries. The plug-in also utilizes advanced facial-recognition software, so that if anyone puts a picture up on Facebook that looks like you without tagging it, the app will let you know.

In other words, if you think there might be some embarrassing pictures floating around from last weekend, you don’t have to worry anymore about where they might be: McAfee Social Protection will show you where. (Of course, it’s up to you to convince the person to take the pics down. They haven’t invented an app that can talk your friends out of embarrassing you yet.)

Only people you invite will be able to view your protected photos, and they will first have to download the plug-in themselves, a step that might deter the casual Facebook photo stalker.

Browsing through old pictures is fun, but at the end of the month it might get a lot harder. Click here to view the ‘Social Protection’ Facebook app page and to sign up for a notification for when it becomes available.

Social Protection will be released as a free public beta at the end of this month. McAfee hasn’t decided if it will be bundled with other products or if it will be a stand-alone offering.


Recommended Resources

BitDefender Safego is a Facebook application you can install that will scan your News Feed and help keep you safe from scams on Facebook.

PRIVATE WiFi® is a Personal VPN that encrypts everything you send and receive. Don’t access Facebook from a public WiFi hotspot without it.

Do Not Track + is a FREE browser plugin created by Abine. This easy to install plugin keeps websites from tracking you. If you value your online privacy, then you should definitely take advantage of this free product.

Action Alert | Free Parental Control offers a 100% free Internet safety solution designed for parents. There is also a Maximum Protection option for parents that need a more advanced set of tools.

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