# Staged users and privacy
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/staged-users-and-privacy/234177
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [July 27, 2022, 6:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/staged-users-and-privacy/234177 "2022-07-27T18:06:10Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Jonathan5](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jonathan5)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2022, 6:06pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/staged-users-and-privacy/234177/1 "2022-07-27T18:06:10Z")
Continuing the discussion from [Hide User Profiles setting incomplete](https://meta.discourse.org/t/hide-user-profiles-setting-incomplete/70358/9):
If staged users are created (eg during a mailing list import to a private category) what information about the staged users is available to others (unregistered or at the various trust levels)? How can this be minimised? Thanks.
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### Author:  [@hiddenseal](https://meta.discourse.org/u/hiddenseal)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2022, 9:41pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/staged-users-and-privacy/234177/2 "2022-08-17T21:41:11Z")
If I understand you correctly, the imported users are placed into a group (otherwise, I can’t imagine having a private category).
You could make the group visible only to group owners/members (in effect, being invisible to everyone who is not in the group). This is done in group settings.
I don’t think anything can prevent other users from seeing a user profile, but if the group is private, they won’t see who’s in that group. They won’t be able to tell if someone is in a private group unless that someone has a title specific to that group, but then again, they won’t know anything beyond that.
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### Author:  [@Jonathan5](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jonathan5)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2022, 8:28am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/staged-users-and-privacy/234177/3 "2022-08-18T08:28:51Z")
> [@hiddenseal](#):
>
> I don’t think anything can prevent other users from seeing a user profile
I believe it’s possible for a user to hide his own profile – I wonder whether it’s possible as admin to set this for staged users? Maybe with a database query?
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### Author:  [@Jonathan5](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jonathan5)
#### Post date: [August 28, 2022, 1:35pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/staged-users-and-privacy/234177/4 "2022-08-28T13:35:35Z")
Alternatively, I guess the staged users could just be named staged1, staged2, staged3 etc, so their existence wouldn’t reveal anything about the users. I assume it’s possible to change a username later, if the user registers for the forum.