App On Social Media Has Ties To Russia

A new app that has taken social media by storm, has come with a warning about the company’s links to Russia.

The app, NewProfilePic, which requires the user to upload profile pictures and turns the pictures into a painting or a cartoon, has sent tens of thousands of profile pictures to Moscow.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ offshore leaks database shows the company behind the app has an address in Moscow and is also linked to the British Virgin Islands.

Linerock Investments is apparently based in an apartment beside Russia’s Ministry of Defense and only three miles from Red Square.

Jake Moore, a global cybersecurity adviser, told MailOnline: ‘This app is likely a way of capturing people’s faces in high resolution, and I would question any app wanting this amount of data, especially one which is largely unheard of and based in another country.’

The app has been installed more than one million times and currently has 30,000 reviews from users of the app, according to the Google Play Store and is listed as the number one free app on the store.

To use the app users are required to provide their name, email address, username, social network information and other information when registering.

Photo Lab spokesperson Kate Polezhaeva told The Independent that the app has “development and customer support offices in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus… the top management of the company and the managers of the majority of the projects, including myself, are based out of these countries.”

Ms. Polezhaeva also added that the address registered to the company belongs to lawyers who registered the company and noted that the company itself never had an office in that location.

‘It is true that the domain was registered to the Moscow address,’ she added. ‘It is the former Moscow address of the founder of the company. He does not live in the Russian Federation at the moment.”

“By now the address has been changed in order to avoid any confusion.”

The app’s description reads: “The NewProfilePic app lets you change your user image style as often as you want. Dare to be different, with a profile pic that reflects your current mood or state of mind. Impress your friends on social media and keep them interested in what’s coming next!”

According to NewProfilePic’s privacy policy, users are agreeing for the app to “collect certain personal information that you voluntarily provide to us.”

“We collect your name, email address, username, social network information and other information you provide when you register,” it adds.

It also collects data about the user from other companies and the user’s IP address, browser type and settings.

In response to claims the app is ‘Russian malware’, the fact-checking website Snopes wrote ‘there’s little evidence to suggest this app is any more invasive in its collection of user data than other apps’.