Start here
The free tool below runs entirely in this browser — no account, nothing stored or transmitted. Redact anything you would not want kept before you type it.
Open the companion tool →Why faces are a different category of data
You can reissue a password. You cannot reissue a face. A face template, once stored, is a permanent identifier that links photographs across accounts, and it can be matched against anything else that carries it.
Some features genuinely need it: grouping photos of the same person, or applying an effect to the right face. Others collect it because the pipeline makes it easy. The distinction is usually visible in the settings, once you know which feature you are looking at.
The protocol
- List the apps with access to your photo library, including the phone's own gallery, cloud backup, social apps, and any AI editor.
- For each, find the face or biometric setting and read what it says the data is used for. Turn off anything that is not the feature you actually use.
- Delete face-grouping profiles and generated avatars you no longer want, if the app offers a delete option for them.
- Check whether photos are uploaded for processing, or processed on the device. Features that run on the device keep the face on the device.
- Decide about family photos as a household: the faces of children and people who cannot consent deserve the stricter setting, not the default.
What the tool does
Describe the photo app and get a feature-by-feature reading: which features need face data, which settings to change, and what to delete. It runs in this browser; nothing is sent or stored.
Limit first: This is a settings-review aid, not legal advice and not a security guarantee. Features and menu names change often, and deleting a profile does not always delete everything derived from it.
Open the companion tool →One human next step
If a service will not delete face data or will not explain its use, ask in writing and keep the reply — consumer privacy agencies in many states accept complaints about biometric data practices. For a child's images, apply the strictest available setting and remove public copies.
Research log and safety checks
AI-assist path: not used for a verdict. Feature-to-data mapping lives in each app's own settings and terms, and the reader has to see the mapping to act; an opaque model judgment would replace an inspectable answer with a guess. §6.10: not a frontier-pace topic.
§0.5 protection result: category is data-privacy-exposure; crisis-adjacent: no; fear/urgency/scarcity toolkit used: no. The protective function is free and the paid feature is convenience only.