Viral Sensation #AgeChallenge Raises Concerns With FaceApp Privacy Policy

The viral FaceApp challenge has captured millions of social media users worldwide as well as an extensive list of celebrities including Drake, Sam Smith, the Jonas Brothers, and Lil Nas. Some of our favorite producers and DJs like Diplo, Skrillex, and Dillon Francis (pictured above) have also taken on the challenge and shared their aged photos on Instagram.

But now the old-age photo filter sensation has led to some concerns regarding privacy issues. According to the New York Post, “FaceApp, which you grant permission to access your photo gallery, also includes in their Terms and Conditions that they have the right to modify, reproduce and publish any of the images you process through its AI.” In reaction to the growing social media and news coverage about the AI photo editor’s privacy policy, users have uproared with security concerns. The idea that the Russian app is keeping photos on their servers and potentially sharing that information within Russia has driven some Democratic officials, like NY Senator Chuck Schumer, to call for an FBI investigation into the “national security and privacy risks” FaceApp poses, reported today by NPR.

BIG: Share if you used #FaceApp:

The @FBI & @FTC must look into the national security & privacy risks now

Because millions of Americans have used it

It’s owned by a Russia-based company

And users are required to provide full, irrevocable access to their personal photos & data pic.twitter.com/cejLLwBQcr

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) July 18, 2019

In the face of mounting concerns, the app team issued a statement addressing their privacy policy. Read FaceApp’s full statement below.

We are receiving a lot of inquiries regarding our privacy policy and therefore, would like to provide a few points that explain the basics:

1. FaceApp performs most of the photo processing in the cloud. We only upload a photo selected by a user for editing. We never transfer any other images from the phone to the cloud.

2. We might store an uploaded photo in the cloud. The main reason for that is performance and traffic: we want to make sure that the user doesn’t upload the photo repeatedly for every edit operation. Most images are deleted from our servers within 48 hours from the upload date.

3. We accept requests from users for removing all their data from our servers. Our support team is currently overloaded, but these requests have our priority. For the fastest processing, we recommend sending the requests from the FaceApp mobile app using “Settings->Support->Report a bug” with the word “privacy” in the subject line. We are working on the better UI for that.

4. All FaceApp features are available without logging in, and you can log in only from the settings screen. As a result, 99% of users don’t log in; therefore, we don’t have access to any data that could identify a person.

5. We don’t sell or share any user data with any third parties.

6. Even though the core R&D team is located in Russia, the user data is not transferred to Russia.

Additionally, we’d like to comment on one of the most common concerns: all pictures from the gallery are uploaded to our servers after a user grants access to the photos (for example, https://twitter.com/joshuanozzi/status/1150961777548701696).  We don’t do that. We upload only a photo selected for editing. You can quickly check this with any of network sniffing tools available on the internet.

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Viral Sensation #AgeChallenge Raises Concerns With FaceApp Privacy Policy