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A brand new app that lets customers flip their profile photos into cartoons has been gaining reputation on Fb. The app is named NewProfilePic and it’s throughout social media, however is the app protected?

 

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NewProfilePic Image Editor (or NewProfilePic: Profile Image on the Google Play retailer) helps you to customise your profile photos, however some persons are involved in regards to the security of the app.

The app has shot up the app charts to carry a primary place with tons of of hundreds of downloads within the final couple of weeks. The app lets customers add a picture and add one among a number of cartoony kinds to create a enjoyable, new image.

Nevertheless, like with many different apps that blow up in reputation, many individuals are skeptical about newProfilePic’s security.

Some persons are saying that the app is Russian malware spying in your telephone. Others declare the app is primarily based in Russia and has ties to the Kremlin. One individual even mentioned the app takes “all of your data and sends it to Moscow.”

So is there any advantage to those claims? Is NewProfilePic actually a harmful app that harvests tons of consumer information to ship to the Russian authorities? Let’s discover out.

Is the NewProfilePic app sending your data to Russia?

Brief reply: Most likely not

After a little bit of digging, it seems like NewProfilePic is not any extra invasive than different apps that you’ll find on the App Retailer and Google Play retailer.

The app does require digicam and storage permissions, amongst a couple of others, however these permissions usually are not out of the strange in comparison with different apps.

The great individuals over at Snopes dove additional into the claims of hazard tied to this app. With regards to NewProfilePic sending consumer information to Moscow, the claims have been discovered to don’t have any actual weight.

The declare stems from a site registration for the app’s web site that exhibits the web site was primarily based in Moscow. Nevertheless, in talking with Linerock Investments, the app’s writer, Snopes discovered that this wasn’t fairly true.

The event of the app originates within the British Virgin Islands, the place Linerock Investments is positioned. However the firm employs a global staff of builders, a few of which reside, or did reside, in Russia.

Based on the corporate, the person who registered the web site lived in Moscow at one level. However that’s not the case. The web site’s registration location has since been up to date to indicate Florida as the situation.

Is the app stealing cash from customers?

One other rumor that Snopes discovered in regards to the potential hurt of the NewProfilePic claims that the app charged a consumer an unsolicited charge of £60 by means of the App Retailer.

Whereas the cost itself may very well be reputable, an organization spokesperson informed Snopes that the app is “completely free and it doesn’t include in-app purchases so it doesn’t require any cost data of the customers.”

Nevertheless, to be truthful, I downloaded the app to see if this was true and located that there’s a single in-app cost choice within the NewProfilePic app. You possibly can join “NewProfilePic Professional,” which presents a few further options, for a single cost of $29.99.

It’s unclear if the corporate’s spokesperson made these claims earlier than this in-app buy choice was out there. Or possibly they made a mistake of their assertion. Both manner, there’s nothing that basically substantiates the claims that NewProfilePic is stealing cash from customers.

Is the NewProfilePic app protected to make use of?

On the finish of the day, there’s nothing that implies that this new app is any extra invasive than different apps that you just discover on the Google Play Retailer or App Retailer.

Linerock Investments has developed different smartphone apps, together with ToonMe and Picture Lab. And the permissions required to make use of the app don’t recommend something out of the strange.

That being mentioned, when an app blows up like this one, it tends to spawn tons of clones. In the event you’re fascinated by making an attempt out the NewProfilePic, be sure to select the official app from Linerock Investments on the App Retailer or Google Play retailer.

In any other case, you would possibly turn into a sufferer of scammers impersonating the app to benefit from its skyrocketing reputation.