Facebook's new privacy controls include photo tag approval

Facebook has announced it will introduce several new privacy controls in the next few days, including an option to choose whether to publish photos tagged by others on a user's profile.

The announcement came on Facebook's blog by vice president for product Chris Fox. 

The improvements, called Making It Easier to Share With Who You Want addresses privacy concerns and issues that Facebook has had for some time, TechCrunch reported, saying the change was a "kitchen-sink of fixes".

The changes include Inline Profile Controls, or privacy controls visible on a user's profile, instead of several menus of navigation away as previously. 

Facebook will also add Profile Tag Review, allowing users to approve or reject photos or posts they are tagged in before these are published on the user's profile.

Users will also be able to review, approve or reject any tag someone attempts to add to the user's photos or posts.

Other changes include the re-naming of the 'everyone' tag to 'public', the abililty to change who can view a post at any point in time, the ability to tag anyone in posts and photos whether the user is friends with them or not, the ability to add location to anything, regardless of device or post content (ie photo, post etc).

Facebook will also provide greater clarity when users choose to remove a tag or content, with a list of options about removing the the tag and what it will mean.  One of these options includes a set message asking the tagger to take the photo down, which helps the person "post better photos in public", the option says.

Mr Fox said on the blog that the changes came after Facebook had been told by users that the "who can see this?" privacy settings could have been made clearer.

"We have made changes to make this more visual and straightforward. The main change is moving most of your controls from a settings page to being inline, right next to the posts, photos and tags they affect."

The WallStreet Journal said the changes were "somewhat of a turnabout" for the company which had appeared to encourage users in previous years to share as much information as possible.

Mashable reported it had asked privacy and safety groups about the changes, who said they were pleased with the overhaul.

TechCrunch said Facebook's reported rationale for the changes was the introduction of the ability to tag people in photos and posts that were not Facebook friends.

"If you’ve ever uploaded an album from a wedding, party, or other event where you only vaguely knew some of the attendees, then you’ve probably encountered an annoying quirk in Facebook Photos: you can only tag people in photos that you’ve friended on Facebook. Which often leads to friending people you couldn’t care less about."

Any tagged photos go into the approval queue before being published on the user's profile, and TechCrunch reported there is no way to turn off the approval process for non-Facebook friends.