Faceapp knows what 150M faces look like. That concentration of information is valuable. Google built a fortune by taking freely available information and organizing it for easy access. In the case of faceapp there are many nefarious actors who could serve as clients.

I'd also add that facial recognition is also becoming more common as a way to authenticate into systems. This might be a naive analogy, but, this feels like thousands of people providing a company with their name and their phone's lock screen combination.

> providing a company with their name and their phone's lock screen combination

In consumer devices the face data is stored only on-device, so any privacy concerns are defended by "it's not sending your face to the cloud" and/or "don't use it if you don't trust it"

But if they have your face from another source and it's good enough to authenticate, that doesn't matter. Your face is a good strong password, but what good is that if it leaks? You can't reset your face like a password, after all.

At least with fingerprints you have 9 extra passwords you can use if your index finger print leaks (I bet my prints are already out there just from getting pre employment background checks from workplaces with hulking old school IT bureaucracies and a workforce pounded daily by phishing attempts).

>Is "what your face looks like" private information?

I think it's the linkage of the name and the face. Either of those things alone don't seem like private information, but together, I would argue they are private. I can't provide a good reason as to why I think that yet though.

They publicly said that less than 1% of the users created an account and tied it to a name. Granted thats still hundreds of thousands but it nothing crazy.

I think you've put that very well.

All I'm wondering is how this would play out in a dystopian future where I'm recognised by everyone wherever I go.

And in some cases they might even have additional information maybe in a probabilistic fashion. Like what kind of clothes I prefer or the kinds of food I like. And that would be the good version.

The worse scenario would be that some malicious actor puts all this together to play on others' fears.

The worst case, of course, being big brother!

FaceApp doesn’t know your name. How would it?

Would a face be considered private in countries/cultures where women cover their face most of the time, or particularly in public? This is an honest question, I really do not know what I think.

Is your dmv drivers license private?