Facebook’s Profile Review and Tag Review: Turn Them On

Facebook is quietly rolling out the most dramatic updates to its privacy settings in a year. While critics have quickly dismissed the updates as typically lacking in user control, there are two new features that we believe you should turn as soon as they are available to you: Profile Review and Tag Review.

Profile Review keeps photos and posts tagged with your name from showing up on your profile without your approval. Tag Review gives you the ability to approve tags that are added to your pictures.

Here’s how to activate Profile Review:

A. Go to Account> Privacy Settings.
B. Next to “How Tags Work” click “Edit Settings”.
C. In the “How Tags Work” pop-up, click “Edit” next to “Profile Review”.
D. In the next pop-up, click “Turn on Profile Review”.

Now, whenever you are tagged in a photo or a post, you’ll have to approve it before it appears on your wall. Tagged posts and photos will appear in your profile wall in a new section called “Pending posts.”

This feature is important because it gives you control over your profile. If a potential employer or an organization considering you for a scholarship is viewing your profile, you don’t want to give others the ability to post questionable images directly on your wall. And even if you aren’t worried about looking professional (or you’ve locked down your profile effectively), there are just some pictures of you that you may not want to help your mom or your friends see.

Photos or posts tagged with your name will still appear on your friend’s wall and feed, so your mutual friends will see them. But Facebook now gives you the option to ask your friend to take down photos of you that you don’t like. And you can always block a friend who refuses to consider your opinions.

Tag Review gives you the power to approve tags from your friends as they are as added to pictures or posts. Facebook is now in the process of allowing any Facebook user to tag any Facebook user in a post or a picture. You’ll be asked to review any tag by a non-friend before it shows up on your wall and feed. Tag Review extends that approval function to your friends’ tags.

Here’s how to Activate Tag Review:

A. Go to Account> Privacy Settings.
B. Next to “How Tags Work” click “Edit Settings”.
C. In the “How Tags Work” pop-up, click “Edit” next to “Tag Review”.
D. In the next pop-up, click “Turn on Tag Review”.

Why is Facebook finally improving its tagging systems?

Clearly, Facebook is obsessed with making it so easy to tag others.  It has even put together what could be the largest facial recognition database ever to make it easy to tag your friends.

Tagging creates feed and wall activity even when you’re not logged in while encouraging the one feature probably most responsible for Facebook’s success: photo sharing. Unfortunately, tagging is also one of the most problematic identity/privacy issues that Facebook users face.

While these privacy updates do include some potentially troubling changes, especially in how your information is shared through apps, Facebook has given you a tool to make it a little less easy for others to tag you. We say: turn them on.

Follow F-Secure on Facebook for more security and privacy tips.

Cheers,

Jason

(Thanks to Andreas on our Facebook page who pointed out Tag Review.)