What is this FaceApp? Is it Really a Way for Russia to Spy on you?

By Amara Iqbal
FaceApp has become the internet’s new viral obsession – it’s the app that everyone has been using to make themselves look old, young, fresh and new. After going viral in 2017 there have been more than 80 million active users, where the app uses artificial intelligence to make you decades and decades older.
Even celebrities have joined in on the fun, such as the Jonas brothers who have taken ‘a trip to year 3000’ as they wrote in the caption on Instagram and Joanna Gaines who has become obsessed with transferring her and her ‘elderly’ family on to her Insta-stories.

Let’s face it, transforming ourselves into something different is always fun, especially when you can clearly see how you will look in the next few years.
Yet however innocent that app may seem, there are rumours going around that as it was Russian made it may be another way for Russians to spy on you. Now, how true is that? Well, no, FaceApp is not really taking your pictures and taking them back to Russia for an irrational project. Although in FaceApp’s terms and conditions it does say that they retain the rights to any photos which you upload on to the app, meaning that they can use your picture for anything, as realistically, it is their picture now.
FaceApp has said in a statement that images are usually deleted from their server after 48 hours of being uploaded. Although there has been no way of confirming this, if you want your picture to be removed from the app you can send a request, by going into Setting > Support > Report and putting it onto ‘privacy.’