Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is taking aim at the popular photo-editing app FaceApp, urging the FBI and Federal Trade Commission to probe whether it poses national security and privacy risks.
The New York Democrat sent a letter Wednesday to FBI Director Chris Wray and FTC Chairman Joseph Simons after photos generated by FaceApp took over social media this week. Owned by a company in St. Petersburg, Russia, the app uses artificial intelligence to change users’ hair color or eye color, and make them look younger or older.
“In the age of facial recognition technology as both a surveillance and security use, it is essential that users have the information they need to ensure their personal and biometric data remains secure, including from hostile nations,” Schumer told Wray and Simons in his letter.
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
While FaceApp first went viral in 2017, it gained traction again after professional athletes, actors, and singers shared photos of themselves looking years older on social media. But the app quickly came under scrutiny for its terms of service and privacy policy, as well as its ties to Russia.
Schumer warned FaceApp’s location in St. Petersburg “raises questions regarding how and when the company provides access to the data of U.S. citizens to third parties, including potentially foreign governments.”
FaceApp’s terms grant it “consent to use the User Content, regardless of whether it includes an individual’s name, likeness, voice or persona, sufficient to indicate the individual’s identity.” Its privacy policy also details the data FaceApp is collecting, including users’ IP addresses and URLs.
“In practice, providing this level of access to a user’s data could mean that any photos taken with the application could be used publicly or privately in the future without a user’s consent. Furthermore, it is unclear how long FaceApp retains a user’s data or how a user may ensure their data is deleted after usage,” Schumer wrote. “These forms of ‘dark patterns,’ which manifest in opaque disclosures and broader user authorizations, can be misleading to consumers and may even constitute a deceptive trade practice.”
Schumer wants the FBI to examine whether the data uploaded by Americans on FaceApp could make its way to the Russian government or entities tied to the Kremlin and is asking the FTC, which enforces federal privacy regulations, to assess whether there are “adequate safeguards” in place to protect Americans’ privacy from being compromised.
As privacy and national security concerns surrounding FaceApp mounted Wednesday, the company issued a statement seeking to explain its service.
FaceApp founder Yaroslav Goncharov told TechCrunch it uses Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud to store images uploaded by users, and most photos are deleted from FaceApp’s services within 48 hours of the upload date. Additionally, FaceApp said that while its “core R&D team” is located in Russia, user data is not transferred there.
The company’s reassurances did not stop the Democratic National Committee from sending a security alert to 2020 Democratic presidential campaigns urging them to avoid the app, saying it is “not without risk.”
