Are Russians Collecting Your Data in The #FACEAPPCHALLENGE?

It seems every other post on Facebook right now shows a heavily wrinkled friend with sagging jowls and enough baggage under their eyes to pack for a trip to Europe.  The #FACEAPPCHALLENGE is all the rage right now. Seems a lot of people want to know what they will look like when they grow old.  But when you upload your picture, what are you agreeing to? Should you be concerned?

According to Google's Verify, you shouldn't get too worked up about it.  If you're using other apps like SnapChat or even Facebook itself, you're not giving up any additional information to FaceApp.  Their photo sharing and storing policies are pretty much the same.

When potential users really investigate the app and actually read the Terms of Service, they'll see that FaceApp is indeed headquartered in St. Petersburg, Russia. That sounds alarming, but again, chances are you've already signed away rights to certain pictures.  That doesn't mean you've given up rights to everything on your phone, according to Verify.  In simple terms, if you added a filter to one of the photos on your phone, FaceApp would have that one photo uploaded to the system and no others.

The bottom line:  there's certainly nothing wrong with being cautious with apps like these, but it is important to note that a lot of apps have almost identical permissions.  The only way to ensure privacy is to jump off the information superhighway all together, but chances are if you've surfed around at all, even that move is too little too late.