I sent a screenshot with personal data covered and they managed to read it, I don’t trust it anymore and now I always do this

It is very common that when you want to share a screenshot of your mobile or PC with someone, you decide to cover sensitive information or personal data that you do not want them to see. The most common practice is to simply scratch or darken those parts of the image.

So far, everything seems normal and safe, right? But although at first glance it seems like an effective solution, you could be making a mistake that compromises your privacy and security.

It is important to mention that when you cover information in a capture, What you do is modify the visibility of that part of the image, but you do not eliminate it. Everything underneath is still there, you’ve just made it less perceptible to the human eye.

The person receiving your capture, if they have some basic image editing skills, can easily reverse what you have done.

By raising the exposure, reducing the luminosity, lowering the contrast or increasing the brightness, Information you thought you had hidden may reappear, visibly, in the photo. This happens because scratching a screenshot does not erase the data, it only makes it more or less visible.

This is potentially very dangerous. Imagine that in that screenshot was your address, your banking information, or even details about your personal life that you don’t want to share. If someone has access to that data, they could use it to commit fraud or identity theft.

The Solution: Use Graphic Elements in Screenshots

To avoid these risks, You will most likely use graphic elements in all the screenshots you share.

Whether with friends or family, this is to cover the information you want to keep secret. Here we explain how to do it:

• Stickers and Emojis: You can use stickers or emojis directly on personal data. These graphic elements not only cover the information in the view, but also make it difficult to recover through image editing due to their high opacity nature and the complexity of the patterns or colors they contain.
• Crop Image: If the data to be hidden is a segment of the capture that is not essential to what you want to share, simply crop that part before sending it. This physically removes information from the image, making it impossible to see.

Although covering important information in a screenshot may seem like a quick and easy solution, it is not enough to guarantee your privacy and security.

It is essential to adopt safer practices, such as cropping the image or using graphic elements to cover certain data. In this way, you protect yourself and avoid possible risks of exposing relevant information.

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Tags: Privacy, security