Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer raised concerns that the app, which is headquartered in Saint Petersburg, is passing users’ personal data onto the Russian government. Bob Lord, security chief of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), sent a warning to all the 2020 Democratic presidential campaigns advising them to delete the app. (New York Times)

Talking point: U.S. regulators have been quick to take data and privacy concerns seriously when national security issues are evoked. For example, the ongoing action against Huawei and other Chinese companies cites concerns regarding the influence of the Chinese government on these companies’ operations in the U.S. Chinese gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech agreed to divest in the popular LGBTQ dating app Grindr after a U.S. government committee asked it to, due to national security concerns. And, even Facebook and Google were subject to increased scrutiny after Russian influence campaigns spread disinformation on their platforms in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election. For its part, FaceApp has said that only the images processed on the app are uploaded to its servers, and that no user data is transferred to Russia. “Most images are deleted from our servers within 48 hours from the upload date,” the company told TechCrunch on Wednesday.