FaceApp privacy questions answered: CEO on data it takes, how long it’s held and what is done with it

FaceApp, a program that ‘ages’ photos of people using AI, topped Apple and Google store charts this week, but set off privacy alarms

Here the CEO of the company that made the app answers questions on what it does with that most personal of things – our faces

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FaceApp shot to the top of the Apple and Google store charts this week, and Instagram is filled with images of users posting their “aged” faces from the app. Photo: AP

Published: 11:20am, 18 Jul 2019Updated: 11:26am, 18 Jul 2019

When an app goes viral, how can you know if it’s all good fun – or covertly violating your privacy by, say, sending your face to the Russian government?

That’s the burning question about FaceApp, a program that takes photos of people and “ages” them using artificial intelligence. Soon after it shot to the top of the Apple and Google store charts this week, privacy advocates began waving warning flags about the Russian-made app’s vague legalese. Word spread quickly that the app might be a disinformation campaign, or secretly downloading your entire photo album.

I got some answers by running my own forensic analysis and talking to the CEO of the company that made the app. But the bigger lesson was how much app-makers and the stores run by Apple and Google leave us flying blind when it comes to privacy.

I raised similar questions a few weeks ago, when I ran an experiment to find out what my iPhone did while I slept at night. I found apps sending my personal information to all sorts of tracking companies I’d never heard of.

Actor Jeremy Renner posted an image of FaceApp-ed Avengers on Instagram. Source: Instagram

So what about FaceApp? It was vetted by Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store, the latter of which even labelled it an “Editors’ Choice”. Both stores link to its privacy policy – which they know nobody reads.

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