id="article-body" class="row" section="article-body" data-component="trackCWV">






















— Dan (@dannah__montana)














window.CnetFunctions.logWithLabel('%c One Trust ', "Service loaded: script_twitterwidget with class optanon-category-C0005");







Maybe you've seen some of your Facebook friends upgrading their profile pictures to look like fancy illustrations of themselves. They're likely using a free app called NewProfilePic Picture Editor, the latest social media craze. And while the new images may look glamorous, using the app may be a bad idea -- but perhaps not for the reason some say. Let's look at the facts.
What is NewProfile Pic?NewProfilePic is an app you can get for iOS or Android. It does pretty much what it says -- makes your profile image look like a painting, using artificial intelligence. People on various social platforms are having fun tinkering not only with their own photos, but images of famous people and pets.
Who's behind NewProfilePic?
"A British Virgin Islands company, Linerock Investments Ltd. holds all the intellectual property (for the app)," , "but several other companies work together to create the app, including Informe Laboratories and Photo Lab."

Linerock didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, though it has posted a response to the Newsweek article (see below).  
So what's the controversy?
On Wednesday, the UK tabloid The Daily Mail with the unnerving headline, "Is Russia after YOUR personal data? Experts warn internet users not to download latest online craze New Profile Pic that hoovers up your details." ("Hoovers" as in "vacuums," for those not up on British slang.)

















The Daily Mail quotes a security expert who says "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."
Shades of FaceApp in 2019
I spoke to cybersecurity journalist and author about the app.

"This feels exactly like the FaceApp situation, with one important difference: the world is at war with Russia now," he told me. 

Back in 2019, a similar app, -- you could use it to age a photo of yourself or alter it in other creative ways. It was also based in Russia, and the .


It's the head tilt for me.
— Nic