User Profiles - When private profiles are disabled, all profiles should be public
What / Why
Related to Disable users from changing user profile to private (#421310)
We are currently implementing a new application setting that allows instance admins to disallow private profiles on their instance. However, there is currently nothing in place to remedy any existing private profiles when private profiles are disabled. We need to figure out an approach to not only disabling private profiles but enforcing all profiles are public
Screenshot
Screenshot of private profile on instance where private profiles are disabled
![](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/uploads/783e3d1f4974fbc40a889003362d7a25/Disabled_Enabled.png)
Proposal
I have a couple ideas of how we can address this
Option A: When setting is set to true, run migration to set all profiles to public (this could be very expensive on large instances)
Option B: Create a SSoT for public vs private profiles in backend that checks first if private profiles are allowed before checking a user's record
Option C: ???
Implementation Guide
TBD