# Is it safe to use chat/comments component? **URL:** \ **Category:** Report a Bug\ **Tags:** security, row-owners\ **Created:** [May 12, 2024, 1:15pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/is-it-safe-to-use-chat-comments-component/73288 "2024-05-12T13:15:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Martin\_B](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/martin_b/32/74360_2.png) [@Martin\_B](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Martin_B)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2024, 1:15pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/is-it-safe-to-use-chat-comments-component/73288/1 "2024-05-12T13:15:49Z")
Hello, The Chat and comments components require use of author EMAIL value. Isn’t that a security/privacy risk? As we can’t work with row owner columns with this component for obvious reasons… If it was ROW ID of user wouldn’t it be better? Else i was thinking about putting a disclaimer below chat: be mindful your email could be visible by everyone. What do you think? is it safe to use chat/comments component? ---
**Author:** ![ThinhDinh](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/thinhdinh/32/49_2.png) [@ThinhDinh](https://community.glideapps.com/u/ThinhDinh)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2024, 12:19am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/is-it-safe-to-use-chat-comments-component/73288/2 "2024-05-13T00:19:55Z")
Why wouldn’t you be able to work with row owners though? As long as you pass an email over the comments table you can use it? I’m not sure I get the problem here, you can also use a roles setup for data privacy. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_B](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/martin_b/32/74360_2.png) [@Martin\_B](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Martin_B)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2024, 11:12am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/is-it-safe-to-use-chat-comments-component/73288/3 "2024-05-15T11:12:40Z")
Found solution thanks to ThinhDinh in private chat. **ThinhDinh in DM:** You can just send a userID over and then use a relation + lookup to get the email Computed columns are mostly calculated on the client’s side, so if anyone can “hack” your data, they can only get the ID, as far as I aware **Martin\_B in DM** : Thanks Thinh. I did exactly that what you said… **Save user row ID instead of email and use a relation + look up to display message.** **Remaining problem** : as long as the user didn’t send a message in this conversation, all the messages are not identified (linked to a user name)… they all appear on the left side of chat view, and under one name… **Workaround** =\> A button “join chat”, activate visibility for the chat and adds automatically a message in the conversation “username… Just joined”… and then the user can see the chat with properly organised messages. ---
**Author:** ![ThinhDinh](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/thinhdinh/32/49_2.png) [@ThinhDinh](https://community.glideapps.com/u/ThinhDinh)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2024, 2:12pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/is-it-safe-to-use-chat-comments-component/73288/4 "2024-05-15T14:12:28Z")
Can you explain more on this part? > [@Martin\_B](#): > > as long as the user didn’t send a message in this conversation, all the messages are not identified (linked to a user name) I’m not sure how it is related, wouldn’t it be the same if they join the chat (all messages that are not theirs will be on the left)? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_B](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/martin_b/32/74360_2.png) [@Martin\_B](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Martin_B)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2024, 7:23pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/is-it-safe-to-use-chat-comments-component/73288/5 "2024-05-15T19:23:51Z")
Yes 🙂 But in this case, none are preceded by the username. Just messages on the left. ---
**Author:** ![ThinhDinh](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/thinhdinh/32/49_2.png) [@ThinhDinh](https://community.glideapps.com/u/ThinhDinh)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2024, 11:24pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/is-it-safe-to-use-chat-comments-component/73288/6 "2024-05-15T23:24:45Z")
What do you mean by “preceded by the username”? I think there’s something lost in translation here. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_B](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/martin_b/32/74360_2.png) [@Martin\_B](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Martin_B)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2024, 10:01am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/is-it-safe-to-use-chat-comments-component/73288/7 "2024-05-28T10:01:43Z")
The messages of the whole conversation appear on the left side of the chat view (not current user side) as we expect. But without the associated author names… ---
**Author:** ![ThinhDinh](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/thinhdinh/32/49_2.png) [@ThinhDinh](https://community.glideapps.com/u/ThinhDinh)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2024, 10:14am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/is-it-safe-to-use-chat-comments-component/73288/8 "2024-05-28T10:14:40Z")
Something doesn’t sound right. Can you show me how you’re configuring that? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_B](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/martin_b/32/74360_2.png) [@Martin\_B](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Martin_B)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2024, 8:56am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/is-it-safe-to-use-chat-comments-component/73288/9 "2024-06-04T08:56:41Z")
To not save email - to deal the potential data privacy issue mentioned above - i use look up email as you said and it works well. ![Screenshot 2024-06-04 at 10.51.47](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/glideapps/original/3X/8/9/89747673d1eb5a3ae9aa414aa0d3158f957eb754.jpeg) But it’s all displayed on the left as other people should be, but without the associated picture… It looks like all past messages are from one user. ![Screenshot 2024-06-04 at 10.59.16](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/glideapps/original/3X/6/0/6063d0bfc50fcadfabac37f442a0fcf88665f0d6.jpeg) ![Screenshot 2024-06-04 at 10.59.40](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/glideapps/original/3X/6/d/6dfae95fa477ff0653b9a903258f5d631e8f7879.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_B](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/martin_b/32/74360_2.png) [@Martin\_B](https://community.glideapps.com/u/Martin_B)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2024, 9:05am UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/is-it-safe-to-use-chat-comments-component/73288/10 "2024-06-04T09:05:49Z")
![Screenshot 2024-06-04 at 11.05.02](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/glideapps/original/3X/b/2/b27ece8f8bc57a02e1a108db0be6170b8cba9a9e.jpeg) ![Screenshot 2024-06-04 at 11.05.09](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/glideapps/original/3X/a/f/af5721791765657b12e2198aa23311bb06632ed2.jpeg) ![Screenshot 2024-06-04 at 11.05.15](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/glideapps/original/3X/3/e/3ebf880facc2ddeb32dc1a649d798a44b8846695.jpeg) 3 different users views ---
**Author:** ![ThinhDinh](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/thinhdinh/32/49_2.png) [@ThinhDinh](https://community.glideapps.com/u/ThinhDinh)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2024, 11:55pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/is-it-safe-to-use-chat-comments-component/73288/11 "2024-06-04T23:55:45Z")
So the issue here is the author photo? Why do you have it as an image and the author name as a text column? I thought using lookups would make more sense? ---
**Author:** ![system](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/community.glideapps.com/system/32/53398_2.png) [@system](https://community.glideapps.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2024, 11:56pm UTC](https://community.glideapps.com/t/is-it-safe-to-use-chat-comments-component/73288/12 "2024-06-11T23:56:15Z")
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