Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer in a letter Thursday called for an investigation of FaceApp, which has spawned a viral social media craze of people showing their faces aged 30 years.
While benign sounding, the app is owned by a Russian company and could be harvesting data, as well as faces, from users.
Schumer wants both an investigation by the FBI as well as a review by the Federal Trade Commission to determine whether any Americans’ data was exposed to third parties, including a foreign government.
“In the age of facial recognition technology as both a surveillance and security use, it is essential that users have the information they need to ensure their personal and biometric data remains secure, including from hostile foreign nations,” Schumer wrote in the letter.
Concerns have heightened that Russia may once again attempt to interfere with American elections. A report released this year by Special Counsel Robert Mueller determined Russia sought to influence the outcome of the 2016 election by flooding social media sites with false information.