FaceApp Read this before using

FaceApp Read this before using FaceApp has gone viral again with a feature that makes users look elderly, but experts say it may pose security concerns FaceApp, a smartphone app that allows users to apply filters onto selfies they upload, has grown in popularity again thanks to a feature that allows users to make themselves look older. FaceApp, the image processing app that surged in popularity as millions of users transformed their faces to look older, has raised national security and privacy concerns after reports said the Russian-owned app could access reams of personal data on users' phones, including images off their camera rolls. But data privacy experts say those fears are overblown. "There isn't any evidence that FaceApp is doing that," Wired editor-in-chief Nick Thompson told CBSN.

 

What data do they take?

FaceApp uploads and processes our photos in the cloud, Goncharov said, but the app will “only upload a photo selected by a user for editing.” The rest of your camera roll stays on your phone.
You can also use FaceApp without giving it your name or email — and 99 percent of users do just that, he said.



Instead, the mobile app developed by Russian company Wireless Lab raises data privacy concerns typical of social media platforms. FaceApp's user agreement may have been noted as excessive for allowing the platform to own all images created on the app,
but other social media companies like Facebook or Instagram similarly draw up user agreements in the broadest-possible language to protect them in legal conflicts, Thompson explained. 


Your photos could be used for facial recognition technology
FaceApp essentially owns images uploaded to its service and can use them in any way it wants.
That could include anything from splashing your photo across a billboard to using it in the development of facial recognition technology.

Users grant the company the license “to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, publicly perform and display your User Content and any name, username or likeness provided in connection with your User Content in all media formats and channels now known or later developed.”

faceapp news

Who has access to my data?

Do government authorities in Russia have access to our photos? “No,” Goncharov said. FaceApp’s engineers are based in Russia, so our data is not transferred there.
 He said the company also doesn’t “sell or share any user data with any third parties” — aside, I pointed out, from what it shares with trackers from Facebook and AdMob. (Another exception: Users in Russia may have their data stored in Russia.)

Lastly, they can open up the privacy menus in the social media apps they use most often and turn off most of the settings companies collect data on. "And then you're going to be fine," Thompson said.


FaceApp told CNBC on Wednesday that it only uploads the photo selected for editing and that it does not upload any other images in your library. It said most images are deleted from its servers within 48 hours.
It also said that while the company’s R&D team is located in Russia, it doesn’t transfer user data to Russia.