As a tech writer, I’ve had to take thousands of screenshots of my phone or screen to post on the web, and every time I do, I have to carefully check to make sure I’m not sharing more than I should. But in an upcoming release of Chrome for Android, your browser will do it for you.
Bleeping Computer has spotted Chrome’s new experimental signal, which indicates that it can detect the presence of “sensitive form fields,” including passwords and credit card numbers. If such fields are present on the page, Chrome will block them from taking any screenshots or when you share your screen to another display, either locally or over the network.
Chrome for Android already disables the screenshot feature if you’re currently viewing a page in incognito mode (one of the privacy features Chrome doesn’t lie about). But the practical realities of incognito browsing mean that most people won’t use it for stores or services that require a login. This extra security step makes perfect sense for regular web browsing.
It’s unclear when the new feature will be tested with regular users, but it should appear in a build of Chrome Canary for Android soon. If there are no major issues, it should eventually make its way to the Chrome beta and full release. It’s not yet known whether or not it will appear in the desktop, ChromeOS, or iOS versions of Chrome.
