The company is headquartered in Saint-Petersburg, Russia, but it's also incorporated in the United States in Delaware, as The Washington Post reported. FaceApp said, however, that user data is not transferred to Russia in statements to The Washington Post and TechCrunch.
The company's servers are mostly based in America, according to Forbes which said it viewed hosting records. Other areas of the world where FaceApp's servers are hosted include Ireland and Singapore. But FaceApp employees in Russia still likely have access to the data although it's not hosted there, as the report also notes.
FaceApp removes most photos from its servers after 48 hours, reports from Forbes, The Washington Post, and TechCrunch indicate.
Goncharov's LinkedIn profile lists him as the CEO of FaceApp starting in 2014. But the app didn't launch until 2017, when it quickly became popular for its filters that can alter the subject of a photo's age or gender.
The FaceApp CEO has an extensive history of working for major tech firms including Russian internet search company Yandex, where he was the head of the company's mobile platform department from 2011 through 2013.
Before that, he worked for mobile software company SPB Software, which made a popular home screen replacement for Android devices called SPB Shell 3D. Goncharov worked as a technical lead for Microsoft before that.
A couple of other FaceApp employees appear to have similar backgrounds, having come from companies such as Yandex, SPB Software, Russian social media platform VKontakte, according to LinkedIn.
Forensic News reported on Wednesday that FaceApp had moved its offices to Skolkovo Innovation Center, a tech hub located west of Moscow that's come to be known as Russia's Silicon Valley. But Goncharov said in a statement to Mashable that it is not received any support from Skolkovo.
His full statement reads as follows:
"No, we are not associated or affiliated with Skolkovo Ventures in any way. Skolkovo is a business park with a lot of different companies. We have not received any funding from any funds associated with any governments."
FaceApp is the number one free app in both Apple's iOS App Store and the Google Play Store. It has more than 80 million users all over the world.
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