Tell the FTC: Investigate phone apps that put our privacy at risk

Maybe you've used FaceApp at some point in the past year -- or maybe you've seen your friends, kids or family members playing around with it. It's the one with filters that show how you might look 10 years older.

But FaceApp hasn't been above board about what it's doing with your photos. Users thought the photos they selected to "age" stayed on their phones. But in reality, the photos were uploaded to external servers -- and the app's 4,300 word-long user agreement had a sneaky clause that gave it a "perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide [and] fully-paid" license over the photos.

That's deceptive, plain and simple. Millions of people used this app, but surely fewer would have done so if they knew were handing over their data and putting it at risk.

It's only fair for us to know what we're signing up for. Tell the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC): Investigate the privacy risks of FaceApp and apps like it.

Unfortunately, FaceApp is just a symptom of a much larger problem. In a world in which access to users' data is so valuable to companies, privacy violations have become routine.

User license agreements (like FaceApp's) are often tens or hundreds of pages of dense legal language. The average user won't or simply can't take the time to read and understand them.

When an agreement is dense to the point that it's practically unreadable, clicking "I agree" simply isn't the same as giving informed consent. If we're being asked to hand over our data, that ask should be up-front and easy to understand.

It's possible that FaceApp isn't doing anything with your data besides exactly what it claims: Manipulating your photographs and sending them back to you. But its deceptive license agreement -- like similar deceptive agreements in many apps -- can still pose a risk to our data security.

We deserve to know whether the apps we download on our phones are safe to use. Ask the FTC to investigate FaceApp and other applications that misuse our data.

Let's make sure tech companies play by the rules and stay honest with their customers.