Are facebook developers required to rehost profile pictures?

Question

I'm developing an app that authenticates users with Facebook. I'd like to display the user's profile picture in their account, which is readily accessible via a public Facebook URL.

Am I permitted to directly link to these images for use in our app, or do we need to download the image and re-host it on our own servers? I wasn't able to find any answer in the terms of service.

Answer 1

You should NOT use the CDN link, because that one may not be valid forever. It is perfectly fine to download the profile image - if you REALLY want to be safe, tell the user about it before he authorizes your App. You need to have a privacy policy anyway, stating what exactly you store about the user.

It is perfectly fine to use the Graph API link though. Depending on how many images you want to show, it may be better to still download them for performance reasons.