Facebook Privacy: Are Your Photos Private?
May 19, 2008
I loooove Facebook. And so do many of my friends! In our photo albums, we post photos of our kids, of ourselves (whether it be sunnying ourselves at the beach or something a bit more decent), of our friends, even of our pets doing stupid tricks or just looking cute (come to think of it, so do the photos of our kids).
What many people don’t realize is that each photo album has its own privacy setting. When you first create a photo album — whether it’s your first or 10th — its privacy level is automatically set to “Everyone.” That means everyone can see it. You can choose from several privacy levels: Everyone, My Network and Friends, Only people at your network, Friends of Friends, or Only Friends. You can even customize who can and can’t see these photos. See screenshot below of the page that appears when you create a photo album:
If you only want your Friends to see these photos, then be sure to select “Only Friends.” Otherwise, everyone and their hairdressers would be able to see YOUR photos even if you’ve got the rest of your profile restricted to Friends only.
You can go back and check the privacy setting of all of your albums all at once via Facebook’s Photos Privacy page. Here, you’ll see a list of all of your photo albums with the option of changing the privacy level of each of these albums. Too bad there’s no option to change all of the albums at once — so if you’ve got 20 albums, it’ll be tedious changing each one individually. Be sure to click on “Save Settings” at the bottom of the page once you’ve changed the privacy setting(s)! Here’s a screenshot of what this page looks like.
So, go forth and have fun on Facebook, and be careful with your privacy!
This is part of an on-going series of posts on Facebook privacy. See related posts on photo albums, profile page, and search options.
May 19, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Thank you! I didn’t realize that. I just edited them recently.
May 20, 2008 at 10:31 am
Hi Josh! It’s Wendy (Sunny) … I see pros to privacy settings for each album. There are some albums I may not want everyone or even specific people to see while other albums, I am alright with more eyes looking at. It does become a headache if you have a lot of albums. Is there a solution to this? :)
*shaking head* Us and our high tech expectations… which is GOOD!! Lol.
Wendy
June 13, 2008 at 5:41 am
hi…maybe you can help me with a problem. i’ve got all my albums on ‘friends only’ and when i tag a friend his friends can’t see the tagged pic even.
but if i switch it to ‘everyone’ or ‘friends of friends’ these friends of friends can now see my ENTIRE album!
is there some setting which allows friends of friends to see the tagged pic ONLY and not the rest of the album?
June 29, 2008 at 1:32 am
Hi! I just wandered if you know something weird that happens with a friend I have. His profile says he has 44 photos, but when I get into his photos’ page, I can only see 22 of them. Do you know why?
June 29, 2008 at 7:40 am
Pepe and Sub – I’m afraid I don’t know the answers to your questions. :-(
July 16, 2008 at 8:44 am
PG: no worries. thanks anyway :)
Pepe: if you look carefully your problem is the inverse of mine :)
this happens because someone like me has tagged your friend but marked the album security to ‘friends only’. so those 22 pics won’t be visible to you unless you are also friends with the owner of those albums.
subu
July 30, 2008 at 12:36 pm
thanks. I forgot this part, and remembered the whole edit application-> photos etc
September 1, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Hi….
thanks for the above…you’ve told us how to change the privacy settings for the albums that we create BUT what about when i’m tagged in a pic.
basically there are somepictures in which i’m tagged that i wouldn’t mind being seen by uni AND work mates….but then there are those certain pics that i’m tagged that i only want uni mates to see.
so basically is it possible to change privacy settings on the photos ur tagged in?
thanks
September 1, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Twinkle – good question. I don’t think there’s a way you can override the privacy setting of a photo in someone else’s album, even if you’re tagged in it. You can always remove the tag of you (even in someone else’s album) so people won’t see the “link” to you. But that doesn’t solve the problem of knowing that there are photos of YOU in other people’s albums, unless you ask them to delete these photos …
October 22, 2008 at 9:02 pm
[...] Facebook Privacy: Are Your Photos Private? What many people don’t realize is that each photo album has its own privacy setting. When you first create a photo album — whether it’s your first or 10th — its privacy level is automatically set to “Everyone.” That means everyone can see it. You can choose from several privacy levels: Everyone, My Network and Friends, Only people at your network, Friends of Friends, or Only Friends. You can even customize who can and can’t see these photos. See screenshot below of the page that appears when you create a photo album: (tags: Facebook fye1220 privacy) [...]
October 27, 2008 at 2:20 pm
FYI, even “Friends only” isn’t truly private. There’s a “public link” for each album, and anyone who can see that album can send that link to anyone else, who can then view the album without being logged into FB at all.
November 11, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Great, now they added a ‘Public link’ on each photos page so that there’s no privacy anymore. It doesn’t matter what the privacy setting is, it can always be seen through the public link. :(
November 26, 2008 at 1:13 am
Yes, with a brute force attack it should be possible to access albums.
There are 6 figures for the album ID and 5 hex characters as another parameter.
It will still take some time…
But this is so silly to pretend “Only me” can see my photos if it is technically available on the internet.
December 6, 2008 at 10:04 am
When photos are set to “everyone”, who is “everyone” that can see them?
December 6, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Is there any way to remove the public link for albums?
FB is letting you control almost every privacy aspect within FB and then they post a public link on the web?!
December 6, 2008 at 12:39 pm
You folks are right – every photo still has a public link where, if shared with others, anybody can see any of these photos. Very disturbing. Let me see if I can find something to “turn this off.”
January 25, 2009 at 9:58 pm
i dont know if this has been answered but…
it does not matter that the public link is at the bottom. only you can see it when you’re logged in and only you can pass it around. your friends or others cant
also if you do give out a public link, it only lasts 4-5 weeks
March 15, 2009 at 12:53 am
I’m noticing that if I click on comments that my friends have posted to people I’m not friends with…. I can then see their album…. Kind of scary, and hope mine isn’t the same for all strangers to see. I’ve set mine to ‘friends only’, but if someone posts a comment can anyone pull up my album from their wall?
March 23, 2009 at 8:00 pm
I just have an observation: (I think I found a loophole)
I created an album with very limited privacy (some friends only) and uploaded some pics. The pictures are apparently available to those friends… However, at the bottom of each picture there is a public link to that picture:
“Show people this album by sending them this public link:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=….. ”
Bottom line: Anyone (logged in or not to FB) that gets a hold to this “public link” address can see my picture… why? I thought only my customized set of friends could see them.
Even though if my pictures are private… there is still a way for anyone in the internet to see them… is this expected functionality? Please advise…
March 23, 2009 at 8:08 pm
tona, only you can see that public link and activate it (by clicking on it). other people viewing your album do not see that option. even if you activate it, its only available for a month or so, and since the web address is so cryptic no one will find the web page (unless you give out the address)
debbie: all that friends of friends see is the comment, not the pic
May 31, 2009 at 9:55 am
I have noticed recently that there is a new option to publish photos on my profile. If I have set a photo album to limited privacy settings (such as a custom list), and I publish the photos to my profile, will anyone who can see my profile be able to access that photo album, or will the privacy settings prevent people from clicking into that album?
Thanks!
June 14, 2009 at 12:06 am
i am putting up an album and have it blocked from a few people. if i tag myself in a few of the pictures and they click on tagged photos of me will they be able to see the tagged photos or will it not show up in tagged photos either?
thanks!
June 17, 2009 at 5:53 am
if i put a comment on my friend\’s album or picture (which is set to friends only) will it show up to my other friend\’s highlight stuff even if they\’re not on my friend\’s friends list? will they be able to view it? if they can.. that would really suck hehe
June 17, 2009 at 11:18 pm
no, if you are not friends with it will not show up in their news feeds, but they will be able to see the comment if they view the picture through his tagged photos.
any thoughts on my question anyone? :)
July 6, 2009 at 6:11 am
I have just come across your blog and its really great. I am not part of the Face book family, but found this to be very interesting and I am going to share this with my friends that are on Face Book, never really gave it much though whether ones photos would be protected, as any contact that you have can then take and share with whom ever they wanted to. Some food for thought.