Last night, I peered into the future.

FaceApp, which uses AI to transform your face, has once again become a viral trend (it earlier took off in 2017).

You can change your hairstyle, expression and look, but it's the option to view a geriatric version of yourself that's captured the world's imagination.

While I couldn't resist a glimpse into the abyss — my face as an older woman — the knowledge it was going to a Russian company for unspecified ends somewhat dampened the thrill.

Loading...

Yes, I was aware this may be an elaborate ploy to stalk my every move on CCTV, but I soon caved to curiosity. I had to know — would I be hot in 2050? (The answer is, resoundingly, no).

The regret was instant, like eating a box of donuts: I'd sent my precious biometric data to Russian developers and all I got was this lousy ad for the merits of preventative Botox.

But 100 million others like me have handed over their faces, so where have they gone and what will they be used for?

Where has your face gone?

The photo you submit is first uploaded to Amazon servers in the US and potentially other Australian servers. From there, it can be accessed by developers from the app's Russian parent company, Wireless Labs.

There's been some panic over the fact that the app requires permission to access your phone's photo library — i.e all your photos — but security researcher Robert Baptiste established that FaceApp only sends the photos you've actively submitted to the company server.

From there, Wireless Labs can do with your image whatever it pleases, thanks to the broad-ranging terms and conditions you hastily signed, desperate to check out the depth of your future wrinkles.

Yes, you still own your "user content" (aka your face — how comforting), but as lawyer Elizabeth Potts Weinstein outlined, "You are giving them a licence to use your photos, your name, your username and your likeness for any purpose including commercial purposes (like on a billboard or internet ad)".

If you're worrying your face will pop up on a billboard in St Petersburg, take heart: that's an unlikely application, according to security researcher Elise Thomas from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

It is far more likely to be fed, along with 100 million others, to a machine-learning algorithm to train facial recognition software.

"This is similar to what Microsoft did with the Guess My Age app that went viral previously," says Ms Thomas.

"But suddenly some people in the US have heard the word 'Russia' and are overreacting."

Loading

Hysteria ensues

It's true that everyone is freaking out: the Twitterverse has gone into full-scale meltdown.

It's not hard to see where the concern comes from: Cambridge Analytica famously used a viral quiz to collect data on Facebook users which it then used to target them with anti-Democrat propaganda in the leadup to the 2016 US Presidential election.

Loading

One tweeter speculates that the Russian Government's "troll farm", the Internet Research Agency, is scraping photos to use for fake accounts in its next disinformation campaign.

Others note that our faces could be used to create "deep fakes": where images or footage of real people are digitally altered and disseminated as real.

"You can look forward to seeing a deep fake pornographic video of yourself in your newsfeed doing things you'd never do", one harbinger of the techno-apocalypse cries.

But Ms Thomas, like many researchers, is perplexed by the hysteria.

"Any photo that you put on the internet could be used to create a deep fake.

"The terms of service for FaceApp are no more invasive or egregious than any other big company you have given your photos to. You've already given your images to Facebook, to Snapchat, to Tinder, to everyone."

Loading

Professor James Arvanitakis from the University of Western Sydney shares this view.

"We need to scrutinise the privacy settings behind FaceApp, but also behind all apps, especially the ones we use the most.

"Compare Facebook [nearly 2.5 billion monthly active users] to FaceApp's 100 million. Facebook has facial recognition tech on all photos.

"Instead of being reactionary to the most popular apps, which come and go, we need strong government policy and broader awareness of the privacy issues with everything we use online."

I ask Ms Thomas if we should be more concerned about a small Russian company than the devils-we-know like Facebook.

"The very long list of privacy scandals from Facebook suggests the big companies are just as risky as the little ones," she says.

"Most free apps exist to collect data. If the app is free, then you are the product."

So should you be marinating in post-donut-style regret? Perhaps, but it doesn't start and end with FaceApp.