The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has said that FaceApp and other mobile applications developed in Russia pose a "potential counterintelligence threat".
In a letter to US Senator Chuck Schumer, the FBI pointed out the potential counterintelligence risk from mobile apps developed in Russia. Senator Schumer called for an investigation into the face-editing app.
FaceApp went vial this year but some people expressed privacy concerns. The app enables users to alter their photos to make them look older or younger.
The FBI comments come amidst increasing concern over security risks posed by products made by foreign tech firms. In the letter to Schumer, the FBI said  "it considers any mobile application or similar product developed in Russia, such as FaceApp, to be a potential counterintelligence threat".
The agency has pledged to act if it discovered any evidence of foreign political intervention via the app.
Wireless Lab, a company based in St. Petersburg, developed FaceApp. It has previously emphasized that it does not not permanently store images, and does not collect troves of data but rather only uploading specific photos selected by users for editing.
Senate minority leader Schumer called for an investigation into the app in July amidst concerns that it could pose "national security and privacy risks for millions of US citizens". Recently, US lawmakers have been focusing video-sharing platform TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance.
TikTok has around 500 million active users globally and has dramatically risen in popularity in recent years. This surge in popularity has brought concerns in Western countries due to the nature of its ownership by a Chinese company.
US lawmakers, including Schumer, have requested in October for "the intelligence community conduct an assessment of the national security risks posed by TikTok and other China-owned content platforms in the US".
They argued that such apps could be utilized to spy on US citizens or become targets of foreign influence campaigns such as the Russian meddling campaign during the 2016 US presidential election.
