@Yun8
Thanks for the link. It's good to get clarification on this, especially when the Airbnb rep tells you 1. it must be because the guest doesn't have a profile picture and then 2. Oh, the guest says they have uploaded a picture? Then it must be a technical error. Unfortunately Airbnb doesn't bother to update its own CS reps about policy changes.
However, I can still see the guest profile pictures on requests from the App on my mobile phone. I can't see them anymore from a browser on either my laptop or iPad. Perhaps Airbnb are still in the process of rolling out this change though.
I'm very glad to see that hosts can now choose an option to require profile photos for booking. The problem still remains that the guest can upload a photo of a goat, their left foot or something else useless and random and now the host cannot address this before accepting the booking.
I understand guests not wanting to be discriminated against, but I also want to know that the person checking into my home is the person who booked. This makes it so much easier for guests to do sneaky third party bookings now and also much easier for the real scammers.