At Samsungs Galaxy S26 live event on Wednesday, the company introduced a new display technology that allows users to turn on a privacy mode and prevent so-called shoulder surfing on a per-app basis. The display tech will offer a smarter and more flexible alternative to privacy films, which are overlaid on top of a smartphones screen to limit viewing unless youre looking directly at the phone.
As Samsung pointed out, these traditional privacy films come with trade-offs like dimmer screens or more difficulties when youre trying to show someone else something on your phone.
Its solution is a new display technology for mobile devices that uses two different types of pixels: narrow pixels and wide pixels. This architecture, which Samsung dubbed Black Matrix, will narrow the path of light emitted from each pixel to precisely control the light visible to you when the privacy mode is enabled. When its turned off, a widened standard pixel works with the narrow pixels to deliver the light in every direction.
The Privacy Display feature is also customizable, so you can set certain apps or notifications to trigger privacy mode, while others are viewed normally. For instance, you could set your messaging app or banking app to always be displayed in a private mode, but leave it off for other apps where privacy is less of a concern. This flexibility also extends to notifications, essentially blacking out certain alerts when viewed from a side angle.
