Google Photos uses facial recognition to automatically identify and group faces across your entire library — including children. This creates one of the largest facial recognition training datasets in history. Google has used Photos data to train its AI models, including Gemini's image understanding capabilities. Users who upload family photos are contributing to a biometric database they never explicitly agreed to build.

CapCut is owned by ByteDance, the same Chinese company that owns TikTok. China's National Intelligence Law (2017) requires all organisations and citizens to "support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence work." ByteDance cannot refuse a Chinese government request for data. CapCut collects face data through AR filters and face-based effects -- biometric data processed by a company legally obligated to share data with Chinese intelligence if requested. With over 1 billion downloads, CapCut has more face data than most governments. The app also collects device identifiers, location data, keystroke patterns, and clipboard contents. CapCut was included in proposed TikTok bans in Montana and at the federal level. A free video editor that collects biometric face data, owned by a company subject to Chinese intelligence cooperation laws, used by a billion people who think they're editing videos.

FaceApp is developed by Wireless Lab in St. Petersburg, Russia. When users apply filters, photos are uploaded to FaceApp's cloud servers for processing -- not processed on-device. Russia's SORM (System of Operative-Investigative Measures) laws require telecommunications companies to provide the FSB (Russia's security service) with access to their systems. While FaceApp states it doesn't share data with the Russian government, Russian law may compel it. FaceApp's terms of service grant the company a "perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide" license to use, reproduce, modify, and publish photos uploaded by users. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer requested FBI and FTC investigations in July 2019. The DNC warned 2020 presidential campaigns against using the app. Over 500 million people uploaded their faces to servers in Russia and granted a perpetual license to a company subject to Russian intelligence laws. The viral aging filter was a biometric data collection operation disguised as entertainment.