With over 2 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the biggest social media platform in the world. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, join groups, promote businesses, share photos, and more. One common concern is that Facebook may use your photos for purposes you don’t agree with or without properly compensating you. So an important question is: can you keep Facebook from using your photos?
What rights does Facebook have to use your photos?
When you post photos on Facebook, you grant the platform certain rights to use them. According to Facebook’s Terms of Service, “you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook.” This license ends when you delete the content or your account, unless it has already been shared with others.
So in essence, by posting photos to Facebook, you allow the platform to use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly display, publicly perform, and translate any photos you share. This allows Facebook to display your photos on the platform and generate previews of them.
How does Facebook use your photos?
Facebook uses your photos in a few key ways:
- Displaying them on your profile, in your news feed, and elsewhere on the platform
- Using them for facial recognition to suggest tags and detect unauthorized use
- Matching them against a database of known child exploitation images (to detect and report abuse)
- Including them in promotions, advertisements, page content, and sponsored content
Facebook states that they do not sell your photos to third parties (outside of a business transaction like selling the whole company). But they do use your photos internally to improve their services and target ads and content.
How can you limit Facebook’s use of your photos?
If you want to restrict how Facebook uses your photos, here are a few steps you can take:
- Adjust your privacy settings. You can limit who sees your posts and photos.
- Avoid posting photos you want to keep private. Remember that anything posted may be used by Facebook.
- Delete old photos you no longer want public or Facebook to access.
- Limit photo tagging by others and untag yourself from posts.
- Block Facebook from using your face for facial recognition.
- Disable access to your camera and photos for the Facebook app.
- Periodically download and backup your photos then delete from Facebook.
- Delete your Facebook account if you want to remove all photos from their systems.
Can you completely stop Facebook from using your photos?
It is very difficult to completely prevent Facebook from using your photos if you share them on the platform. Even with strict privacy settings, untagging, and deletions, Facebook may still have cached versions they can access or analyze. The only way to fully stop Facebook from having rights to use your photos is not to post them at all or delete your account.
What about photos others post of you?
One complication is that others can post photos of you on Facebook, even without your permission. These photos also become subject to Facebook’s policies. To limit this:
- Ask friends to remove old photos you are tagged in.
- Untag yourself from friends’ posts.
- Report unauthorized use of your photos.
- Disable tag suggestions for photos of you by others.
But there is only so much you can control since you did not directly post the photos yourself.
Should you be concerned about how Facebook uses your photos?
Many people are not too concerned, and accept that posting photos online means less control. But others find Facebook’s broad rights to use their photos invasive or worrisome. Reasons someone may be uncomfortable include:
- Privacy concerns if photos are used in ads or content
- Objection to any commercial benefit for Facebook
- Worry photos could be taken out of context
- Dislike of invasive facial recognition practices
- Prefer photos only be shared within friend group
It is a personal decision based on your comfort level. If you have serious concerns, the only way to prevent Facebook from accessing photos is not to post or share any on their platform.
Could Facebook ever lose the right to use your photos?
There are a few scenarios where Facebook could potentially lose or have limitations imposed on their rights to use your photos:
- Policy changes due to lawsuits, regulations, or public pressure
- Changes to user agreements as decided by Facebook
- Banning of certain types of uses, like facial recognition
- Being compelled by a court order or settlement
- A major leadership change within Facebook
- Emergence of viable competitor platforms
However, in general, any photos posted on Facebook are likely to remain available to them indefinitely since their user agreement grants broad rights. Even if you delete photos or your account, Facebook typically retains cached and backup versions they can access.
Tips for controlling use of your photos on Facebook
If you want more control over how Facebook uses your photos, keep these tips in mind:
- Be selective in what you share – don’t post anything private.
- Review privacy settings frequently and limit visibility.
- Disable facial recognition for your account.
- Untag yourself from others’ photos if needed.
- Frequently delete old photos you no longer want public.
- Download your photo archive occasionally as a backup.
- Watermark valuable photos that you don’t want used without permission.
- Spread awareness about Facebook’s practices around photo usage.
Are there any alternatives to give you more control?
A few alternative photo sharing options that could give you more control include:
- Only sharing photos directly with individuals
- Using private cloud storage instead of a social media platform
- Watermarking all photos not meant for public use
- Sharing via ephemeral messaging apps like Snapchat
- Using a Facebook alternative like Nextdoor that may have less rights to reuse
- Critically evaluating terms of service before using a platform
However, no photo sharing platform will give you full control. The more public you share your photos, the less control you’ll have over how they are used by companies and other users.
What legal rights do you have regarding your photos?
You retain certain legal rights regarding photos you post online:
- Copyright – you own the copyright to your own photos and can issue takedown notices for unauthorized use
- Personality rights – your likeness cannot be used without consent for commercial purposes
- Privacy rights – photos posted privately should not be shared publicly
- Consumer protection – platforms must comply with relevant consumer laws
However, by agreeing to Facebook’s terms during account creation, you grant them a broad usage license. You would need to prove unauthorized usage beyond what you agreed to in order to have a legal claim against Facebook.
Is facial recognition a particular concern?
Facial recognition is one of the more controversial ways Facebook uses customer photos. They scan all uploaded photos to:
- Suggest tags of people in photos using facial recognition
- Detect unauthorized use or impersonator accounts
- Add photos to existing profiles of recognized people
- Help identify criminal or dangerous activity
Some people dislike this automated use of their biometric data without consent. While Facebook maintains it is necessary for security purposes, facial recognition remains a contentious issue in the debate around photo usage.
Conclusion
When you post photos on Facebook, you grant the company broad rights to access, use, and distribute them within their platform. While you can employ privacy settings, untagging, and deletion to limit exposure, Facebook still gains a license to leverage your photos in various ways.
To fully prevent Facebook from using your photos requires not posting them or deleting your account entirely. However, many people accept Facebook’s photo usage as a tradeoff for an easy way to share photos with connections around the world.
Going forward, scrutiny from regulators and users concerned about privacy issues could push Facebook to be more transparent about its practices and provide more controls. But the company will likely continue leveraging customer photos broadly to improve its services and target advertising.