For quite some time, users have asked me if it is possible to view Facebook’s private profile picture using iPhone, Android or PC. An operation that would seem impossible to accomplish, at least from a theoretical point of view. If the user to “spy” has correctly set all the privacy settings, in fact, you should not be able to see private photos without being friends. In reality, this is not exactly the case: despite the effort that can be made, even if users are blocked, some information remains public.
To see hidden private Facebook profile photos, there are some special social engineering methods. At the time of writing, they are all perfectly legal and permitted by the terms of use of the Zuckerberg social platform. They unfortunately allow you to bypass the privacy of Facebook and to view Facebook private profile photos even without having friendship. Of course, from an ethical point of view, your desire to spy on a Facebook profile even if you are not a friend could be at least criticizable. However, as I have already told you, there is nothing illegal or prohibited by Facebook, at least for now. Therefore, you will not run the risk of your Facebook profile being banned. So let’s see what it is.
How to see private profile picture Facebook
The tricks I will explain to you shortly, they only work to see private profile photos Facebook that have a public privacy (as it is by default). Let me explain: if your friend has published photos and tagged you or you have commented on his public photos or you put likes, a spy could go back to these images or content using the internal search engine of Facebook (the old graph search, just to understand each other). It does not matter if you have set your privacy on “Friends“. Even your friend should have done it to stay safe from strangers.
If, however, you have both set to ” Friends” or, even better, on “Only me” the privacy of shared photos, I can assure you that, currently, they are in fact impossible to fish from those who do not know you. In short, to really protect the privacy of your content, you should publish it so that no one else, except you or your friends, can consult them. Continue reading to learn more.
Notes: the guide is written for information purposes. We will not be held responsible for any damage caused by the application of the same. The goal is to help users not to be spied on by others by spreading out espionage processes and, in detail, methods to protect themselves from them.
Bypass the privacy of Facebook photos
To see anyone’s private profile photo Facebook, the spies take advantage of the Facebook search engine called social graph. Just set the filters of the social network in the right way to view comments, likes and photos tagged of any subscriber to Facebook.
Alternatively, or better, to automate the process, these geeks take advantage of free browser extensions like PictureMate and Secret Revealer Social. Thanks to them, in fact, you can access private photos, like, comments, posts, tags and geolocalizations without being friends.
Defend privacy on Facebook
Now that you know how to view your private profile photo Facebook, you will have understood that even if you have set the privacy of your profile at best, you could be at risk of espionage (indeed, almost certainly, you are). In fact, someone particularly curious, it would take very little to bypass the privacy of Facebook and see the photos you have commented or those in which you are with your friends.
Fortunately, however, the social network of Mark Zuckerberg offers a tool to defend themselves. The tool in question, allows you to make invisible, even in the eyes of the Facebook social graph and the aforementioned extensions, the tags that your friends add to their photographs. Simply access your profile settings and enable tag control. In this way, in fact, you decide if someone can tag you in his photos and, above all, in which images you will be tagged.
After logging in to your profile, enter the Settings by clicking on the inverted triangle icon (located in the upper right corner, next to the question mark icon) and, in the left column, choose the Timeline and tagging entry. From there, you have several tools to check the tags that are added to photos and posts posted on Facebook.
How not to be spied on Facebook photos
In order not to show Facebook private profile picture and to avoid being spied on Facebook, the commands that most interest us are in the Timeline and tagging sections. By changing the settings in these spaces, for example, you can prevent uninvited users from seeing the images and posts you’re tagged in. Just choose Friends or, for an even more restrictive control, the Nobody option.
You can also click on the Edit link, which appears under “Do you want to check the posts you tag before the post is displayed in your journal?“. Thanks to that option, you can choose to receive notifications whenever someone adds your tag to a post or photo.
In doing so, nobody could spy on Facebook. You would have total control of your presence on Facebook and you would decide which photographs can be viewed by strangers. Now that you are, however, I suggest you reveal it to your friends. They too will be able to defend themselves against this type of social engineering attack.