Some privacy, please

Privacy is one of those things that may not seem visible on the surface of our products, but is definitely being enforced behind the scenes. During recent discussions some folks raised questions regarding how we’re handling privacy, and we thought it would be great to open up that conversation, get your feedback, and make our stance on privacy very clear.

What we’re about
Face.com helps find photos of you, of friends, and lets you have some fun with Facebook photo albums. We’re not about encouraging stalkers, embarrassing anyone, or selling information to some basement dwelling government orgs.

Knowing when there are new photos of you
One cool feature of Photo Finder is telling you when it finds a new photo of you, which you can either tag or hide – it’s up to you.  If you’re not yet a Photo Finder alpha tester, you can see your auto-tagged photos here.

All your privacy settings apply
Facebook is a great platform for socializing while using your real identity. That said, privacy in a social environment is a balancing act. Facebook’s default approach is to allow your circle of friend, friends-of-friends or entire network access to most of your information. But Facebook lets you to change and control who gets to see what. To learn more about what facebook applications can and cannot do, head over to this page.

Photo Finder uses Facebook’s platform APIs to mirror the Facebook privacy settings of you and your friends, and we never collect or share more than your current Facebook settings allow. For example, if you chose to hide your facebook tags, Photo Finder will do the same, and will only show your auto-tags to you. Same goes for specific privacy settings for photos and albums.

Tweaking your facebook privacy settings
Applications on facebook can receive their own settings, allowing you to change how your information is shared. You can change those settings by clicking the settings menu, then privacy settings, and then either “profile” which applies to both users and applications, or just “applications”.
Any changes you make will apply immediately, and will apply to accessing both past and future information.

Got questions?
We’d love to hear what you think, voice it here on our blog or send us a message at feedback@face.com.