Facebook is an amazing tool that allows us to make connections with new acquaintances and stay connected to friends and family. What happens when our privacy is violated though?
Today, we’re going to get down to the nitty-gritty about protecting your personal photos.
Unfortunately, not everything (or everyone) on Facebook is all good. Fraudulent accounts are becoming more and more common. These people will take your personal photos and use them as their own against your knowledge. The experience of having your photos exploited in this way can be disheartening and frustrating. This is why it is important to make sure your photos are protected. So what can you do?
Facebook designates some photo albums as public and allows you to set some albums as private. When an album is a Facebook designated public album, you can still manage the privacy of each photo individually. Profile Picture albums and Cover Photo albums are automatically public. When you go into these albums, you can click on the settings gear to see an explanation of your options for photo privacy (as shown below):
So, while the album itself is public, you can change the audience for any profile pictures except your current one. You’ll just need to go to the picture you’d like to make private, check the audience, and make the change. In the following example, you’ll see that my photo was set to public. When I clicked on the drop down, I was given the option to allow friends to see this photo or to make it visible only to me (this can be a helpful option for private photos of your children, or for images of special experiences that you’d like to have stored somewhere, but not visible to everyone).
Any albums that you have created can be changed at the album level in the same way you changed the individual photos above: by clicking the dropdown menu and selecting the appropriate audience.
I would recommend doing a quick Facebook “clean up” to make sure that all of your photos are being seen by the people you’ve approved to see them.
If you ever find yourself in a position where your photos are being used fraudulently, there are reporting capabilities that you can take advantage of. Facebook will usually respond quickly, but it can be a stressful process, best avoided by taking action now. We hope this never becomes a problem for you. We want to make Facebook a safe and enjoyable experience for everyone – businesses and individuals alike!