Google Messages working on fixing a privacy concern with its Profile discovery feature

Google Messages is now working to fix a Profile discovery privacy risk that has been around since Google introduced the feature last year. The popular RCS messaging app for Android has been gaining popularity recently and more and more companies are choosing it over other messenger apps.

With the rise in popularity, Google Messages is evolving to fulfill the needs and expectations of users better. Back in November 2023, Google announced Profiles, which allowed people to find other profiles.

The feature itself isn’t available to everybody yet (it’s been rolling out to users somewhat sporadically), and now, the folks at Android Authority have discovered that Google is working on fixing privacy concerns around profile discovery.

Digging into the code of Google Messages v20241010 beta, Android Authority found changes that would give users more control over who can see their name and profile picture. Right now, as part of the Profile Discovery feature, you can choose to use the name from your profile or a short name and show or hide your profile picture.

But when this update becomes official, you will have new options inside Google Messages for profile privacy and visibility. Here are the sharing options you will likely get for your profile photo and your name:

• People you message: Most likely, this option will show your name and profile photo to people you have messaged, whether or not they’re in your contact list. This most likely would be what a “Public” profile on social media is. This is the feature you’d use if you want to be found by people when they look up your number through Profile Discovery.
• Only your contacts: Straightforwardly, this means your name and profile photo will be shown only to people in your contacts.
• No one: Likely, your name and photo will be hidden from anyone.

Reportedly, these new options will be shown to you when you log into Google Messages for the first time once the update has been rolled out. You will be able to change this setting through the “Your profile” option in the account switcher after that as well.

For now, it’s not clear whether choosing the “No one” option means you turn off profile discovery features. However, offering these options is a great way to ensure that privacy-focused individuals will not be concerned with Profile Discovery features.

For the moment, keep in mind that you still cannot set a different profile picture or name for Google Messages, and the app takes the picture and name from your Google account. Hopefully, Google will work on that feature too.

After almost a full year after the Profiles announcement though, the feature isn’t rolled out to everyone just yet. It’s great though that Google is fixing privacy concerns ahead of a wider rollout.