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FaceApp will do an about-face on its problematic terms of service

Allison Matyus
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After facing significant backlash for questionable privacy terms that gave it near-total control over your face photos, FaceApp’s creator is now saying the company will change its problematic terms of service. 

The app has been around since 2017, but its old-age filter exploded social media recently — until people started looking into the app’s terms of service that allows the Russia-based developer to use your face photos for commercial purposes. 

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FaceApp said it could delete your data upon request, but the app’s creator and CEO, Yaroslav Goncharov, told Forbes that there would be more transparency with the implementation of an updated privacy policy. 

“It’s my personal top priority to fix our privacy policy and terms of use,” he said, telling Forbes that he plans to draft new policies in the next month. 

The current terms of service states that, “You grant FaceApp a perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, fully-paid, transferable sub-licensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, publicly perform and display your User Content and any name, username or likeness provided in connection with your User Content in all media formats and channels now known or later developed, without compensation to you.” 

Goncharov said that the new terms of services and privacy policies would remove any language about the company’s rights to people’s images. He said that he initially made the terms broad because he wanted to turn FaceApp into a “social network for faces.” 

“To do this kind of product, our privacy policy had to be very similar to what Instagram had. Our current privacy policy is very similar to what Instagram has, but nobody blames Instagram, because it’s Instagram,” he said. 

Goncharov also reiterated to Forbes that the company typically deletes user photos within 48 hours and doesn’t share user data with third parties.

Some changes have already been made to the app. Now when you download it, a notification pops up saying that each photo you input for editing will be uploaded to the app’s servers for image processing and face transformation, giving users more transparency into how their photos are being used.

Digital Trends reached out to FaceApp to get more details on the updated terms of service and privacy policy changes, but have yet to get a response. 

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Allison Matyus
Allison Matyus
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Allison Matyus is a general news reporter at Digital Trends. She covers any and all tech news, including issues around social…
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