Edit: This is about taking screenshots of a device fro the same device. I see in another comment that the screenshot here was a photo taken by a smartphone (which is a different topic).

This is really an issue most people aren't aware of. People somehow learn how to take screenshots of their entire desktop on computers and share them, but also somehow fail to learn how to take screenshots of a window or crop/blur them appropriately. Or perhaps they're always in a hurry and don't have the time to look up how to deal with it.

I have learned which banks some people use (online banking tab open), which browser they use, which programs are running on their system (from the task bar), which Facebook pages they have open, whom they're messaging with on Facebook, which other articles around the web they're reading, and so many other details just by looking at screenshots. It may not be an issue that I got to know these, but it's an information leak that should've been avoided.

Since people aren't going to change quickly, the only solution I can think of is having the screenshot feature or software on all platforms ask the user with a simple UI what they would like to black/blur out and then save that. Dear Apple, here's a cue to build this right into iOS and OS X to continue with the "privacy matters" motto for users (of course, it would be great if Google and MS also embrace this across all their platforms).

In windows, try snipping tool. Comes stock with 7 and up, lets you select a window, or a rectangular area, or even a free form "draw a circle around what you want" mode. And then you can save it or copy and paste it somewhere. So yeah, MS has had this handled for years, just people don't know about it.

Well, I wasn't really looking for solutions myself since I know how to get screenshots and crop/blur/mask them appropriately on different platforms. My comment was more about people not knowing how to do these.

On Windows though, I use Greenshot [0] to capture the screen or a window or a specific region of the screen, with options to send the capture to one of several programs directly. Paint.NET [1] is what I normally use for cropping/annotations/masking, etc.

[0]: http://getgreenshot.org/

[1]: http://getpaint.net/

I was just saying that windows does have this stock, it's just not many people know about it. It's extremely handy, cause you can save directly (no going through paint or other hacks) or copy and paste it into Word/Outlook and other stuff, already trimmed to exactly what you need. Average week, I use Snipping Tool like 20~30 times.

Or just take a screenshot of the intended content instead of the whole screen. Most (?) screenshot software have a feature for choosing a specific window / section of a window.

On MacOS it's builtin, Cmd + Shift + 4 lets you select a screen area

(yeah, not as intuitive as having a PrtScrn button)

He used his friggin phone to make the screenshot. That just shows how intuitive he is. And I may joke about it, but it probably is the easiest way to do this when you're not logged into twitter on the laptop.

And <Cmd Shift 4> <Space> lets you take a screenshot of a window!

But at least MacOS screenshot keys automatically save the screenshot. Took me ages to figure out that on XP you have to paste into Paint or something after hitting the 'printscr' button.

Except he used probably camera phone to take screenshot because his Monitor's brand is in it.

On Android phones at least, it's trivial to crop a photo before sharing it.

But I thought only criminals had something to hide /s!

you expect someone who doesnt even know how to actually take a screenshot (with some software) to know how to crop said screenshot?