What are photo tags on Facebook?

If someone tags you on a photo, that photo will show up on your Facebook page. People can click on your name on the photo and be taken to your profile.

Huh…So essentially they “stole” my picture?

I have everything set to private.

They didn’t “steal” it, they posted a picture on their own profile. For example, let’s say a friend took a picture of you and them and posted it on their Facebook. They can tag your face in it, letting people know it was you they were with. But since if your page is set to private, if they click on the tag and are taken to your profile, they won’t be able to see much really except for your name. I hope that made a little more sense!

Log into Facebook and click on your name to see your profile page. Scroll down and you should see the photos. Another way to look is to go to your photos from your profile page and in “photos of you” they should be there.

They posted some pictures with you in it and then tried to link your FB page to the picture. I have my privacy set so others can’t do that. It only takes a few photos and FB and Google can use those photos to do facial recognition on you.
Your friend are not being malicious. They are just listing everyone in the picture. I still don’t permit it. The pictures become data for the algorithm.

The facial recognition on Facebook freaks me out!

You can also set your privacy settings so that if you tag someone, their friends can’t view and comment on the photos. I tagged some people at a party and was getting a zillion comments from their friends, which was very annoying. After that I realized that the settings on albums and/or individual photos needed to be changed so as not to allow that.

@JLeslie. Yes. It is possible for a nefarious individual to surreptitiously take a picture of someone in public, do a search on google goggles (now supposedly stopped but not really) using the facial recognition feature and find their name and FB page. Then they can see their status, where they live, work, etc.
You might have your info locked down but a friend might not. The more photos you are tagged in the better the recognition works.

@LuckyGuy I know. When I upload a photo Facebook almost always has suggested tags for the photo, and Facebook is usually right.

@JLeslie See those girls at the table in the corner? Hold on… Click… zoom… load…OK… Got it!
They are celebrating Ashley’s 25th birthday. Brittney changed her status to single last week so she’s on the hunt. That’s why she got the new hair style and highlights. Courtney is still single and is living alone in that new house – empty right now. Dina is going on a cruise to Cozumel in April so her house will be open then. Erin is pregnant. That’s why she’s driving Ashley tonight. Whoa! I didn’t know Fran worked at that agency!

And so it goes…

It essentially creates a link to your profile which anyone who sees it can click on.

It is possible they just used your photograph, and identified you in it. They didn’t have to “steal” your photo or reuse it.

Thanks!

The one photo you can never prevent people from seeing is your cover photo. There is no way to make that private – which means anyone can see all of the photos in your “Cover Photos” album. So be sure to clean that out every so often, or only use cover photos you want people to be able to see forever.

There used to be other restrictions on privacy for photos, but in taking a quick tour, I think Facebook has closed most of those gaps, which is good.

You can also delete previous cover photos so there’s only the present one to view…

@jca Yes, that’s what I meant by “cleaning out the album”. I think a lot of people forget that these photos remain on public display forever unless they are deleted (not just replaced as cover photo).