“If you use FaceApp you are giving them a license to use your photos, your name, your username, and your likeness”.
A top US politician has called for the FBI to investigate FaceApp. The app has taken the world by storm over the past few days, as it allows people to edit their photos so they look older or younger.
However, there's been privacy concerns over the Russian company that owns the app.
Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the US Senate, has said that it's "deeply troubling" that people's personal data could go to a "hostile foreign power".
When you are 80 and still want to go to Hogwarts #FaceApp pic.twitter.com/FWte99Ojfr
— The Rowling Library (@rowlinglibrary) July 15, 2019
According to the terms and conditions users agree to when they purchase the app, they “grant Face App a perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide” license to “use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute and display your content”.
Lawyer Elizabeth Potts Weinstein was concerned enough to share a screenshot of the terms with a warning.
“If you use Face App you are giving them a license to use your photos, your name, your username, and your likeness for any purpose including commercial purposes (like on a billboard or internet ad),” she wrote on Twitter. Her tweet has been retweeted almost 5000 times.
If you use #FaceApp you are giving them a license to use your photos, your name, your username, and your likeness for any purpose including commercial purposes (like on a billboard or internet ad) -- see their Terms: https://t.co/e0sTgzowoN pic.twitter.com/XzYxRdXZ9q
— Elizabeth Potts Weinstein (@ElizabethPW) July 17, 2019
She noted that the address for the business behind Face App is in Russia.
“It says that your data can be transferred to any location where they have a facility … which means Russia,” she wrote.
While other people have expressed concerns that Face App was able to access their photo libraries in the background.
Re: FaceApp, can’t speak to it “uploading” photos but the app is definitely able to access my library even though I have Photos permission set to “never” ? pic.twitter.com/jDMkqu5nML
— Karissa Bell (@karissabe) July 16, 2019