Using private profile field in conditionals

[makaiguy]

Background:
Public bbs run by a membership organization. Both org members and non-members use the board. Wish to identify the org members in the author info in postbit.

Using a custom field in profile to identify org members. There is an org password used elsewhere on the site that members enter into this field to verify membership. This field is private so non-members can't see the password in anybody else's profile. Admins are set to be able to see private profile fields.

Have inserted the following code in postbit:

PHP Code:

<if condition="$post['field5'] == $vbphrase[org_password]"><div class="smallfont">Member</div>
<else />
<div class="smallfont">Guest</div>
</if> 


It works perfectly for admins viewing the thread and the routine correctly identifies who has the right password entered and who doesn't, but non-admins just see everyone shown as Guest.

I suspect this is because only admins have the authority to see private profile fields. When the user for whom the page is being built isn't an admin, I'm guessing the value of field5 isn't being passed to the routine at all, so the match fails and everybody is shown as Guest.

We MUST keep this password field in the profile private so that the org pwd is not shown in the clear, but I need this conditional to work no matter whether the viewer is permitted to view private profile fields or not.

Any suggestions?