Disable Photo Tag Recommendations on Facebook and “Save Your Face”

Facebook is well-known for the privacy concerns it generates, and among the worst ones is photo tagging.  Once you’ve uploaded your mug to Facebook and tagged it a few times, Facebook will start to recognize your face.  Once your face is recognized by Facebook, tagging suggestions will automatically show up for any photos that look like when they are uploaded by anyone.  Years back, Mrgroove wrote an interesting piece that shows how you can “lose your face” using a similar tool in Google’s Picasa.  Facebook has included a way to disable automatic tag suggestions.  It still doesn’t prevent people from manually tagging you, but at least it will make it a lot harder to.

How to disable automatic tag suggestions in photos of you on Facebook

Step 1

Login to your Facebook profile, then Click the Account menu button at the top-right.  From the drop-down menu, Select Privacy Settings.

Step 2

On the next page Click the Customize settings button located near the bottom.

Step 3

Scroll down the settings list page and next to “Suggest photos of me to friends” Click Edit Settings.

Step 4

A window should pop up titled “Photos: Suggest Tags.”  On the right-side of this window Click the menu button and Set it to Disabled.  Once finished you can Click Okay to exit.

Done!

Facebook will no longer automatically put your name on photos that other people upload. As mentioned, this won’t prevent tagging, but it should certainly cut down on the amount of photos tagged.