Spoiler Alert: A friend on Facebook for whom you’ve restricted access to your tagged Photos can view all of your tagged photos that have comments on them that were uploaded by you in albums that don’t also explicitly restrict access, despite what Facebook’s help dialog states.

Bonus: They can also see some of your Photo Albums from the new Facebook iPhone App (version 2.0). Be sure to set the privacy settings for each album you’ve uploaded to restrict access to your Limited Profile friend list.

We don’t normally write posts for this kind of thing, but I figured this information is important to anyone trying to keep a professional face on your Facebook presence for family and business contacts.

When setting up your Limited Profile, it is often the case that you want to restrict access to tagged photos of yourself. Of course it’s only natural that you’d want to keep Mom and Dad (who now use Facebook to stay in contact with you) from seeing that night (or girl) you don’t remember. Or maybe you don’t want an employer to see why you’re so tired every morning. Be warned, these privacy settings might not be as far-reaching as you think.

The screenshots below were taken while logged into my own account, but I was able to duplicate these steps while logged in as a friend who I had added to my Limited Profile. Someone on your Limited Profile can see all your tagged photos with comments in the following way:

1. Click on your Profile picture to view your Profile Pictures Album.
   

   Profile Photo Album

2. Click “View Comments” to view all of your profile pictures with comments.
   

   Profile Photo Comments

3. Click “See All Photo Comments” to see all of your tagged photos with comments.
   

   Photo Comments

That’s right, someone on your Limited Profile, which is set up to restrict access to tagged photos of yourself, can see all of your tagged photos that have comments. And of course, the photos with comments are going to be the most outrageous ones… that’s why they have comments.

My Privacy Settings

Did I miss something here? I highly suggest adding a close friend to your Limited Profile and asking them to let you take your profile for a spin from their account to make sure everything is in order.

Update:

I added a few more people to my Limited Profile to get more verification, and my buddy (Joe Minock over at WhatUNeedLocal) just found that once you do Step 3, you can then click “Back to Steve’s Photos” and see ALL of my tagged photos on Facebook. I repeat, Joe, who is restricted from seeing my photos, can see ALL of my photos on Facebook. see all tagged photos of me that are in my own photo albums if the album isn’t specifically set to restrict access to the Limited Profile.

Update 2:

This is apparently not a flaw in programming, but a flaw in the copy of the Privacy Settings description for tagged photos. Facebook says:

Tagged Photos

Use this control to decide who can see the list of photos of you that you or your friends have tagged.

Despite what Facebook says, however, this does not include photos in which you’ve been tagged that are in your own albums that don’t explicitly also restrict access to the Limited Profile in the album’s privacy settings.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 30th, 2008 at 10:40 am and is filed under Campus Life, Landlords, Miscellaneous, School Resources, Tools, Tips, and Resources. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.