Social networking site Facebook has decided to retain the profiles of deceased people with the same settings as when they were alive.

Previously, the 'memorialised' pages were only visible to the deceased's friends.

The Facebook team said it decided to make a dramatic change to their policy to reflect a user's privacy settings in life.

"Some of the people who reach out to us grieving the death of a friend or family member, they usually ask for their loved one's timeline to be memorialised," the company said in a press release.

Till date, when a person's account was memorialised, the visibility was restricted to friends-only.

This meant that people could no longer see the account or any of its content unless they were Facebook friends with the person who passed away.

"Starting now, we would maintain the visibility of a person's content as it is. This would allow people to see the memorialised profiles in a manner consistent with the deceased person's expectations of privacy," it said.

The firm also said it would offer families the opportunity to see a person's 'Look Back' video.