BeautyCam

Is BeautyCam safe?

BeautyCam is safe in the sense most parents mean: it is a camera with beauty filters, not a chat app, and we found no breach, fine or national ban that names it. The weak side is data. Its privacy policy collects hardware identifiers and a list of the other apps on your phone, Google Play says that list is used for advertising, and its notice for European users names Huawei Cloud and Tencent in mainland China as processors. We score it 51/100, close to Meitu's other apps: Wink (52), Meitu (50) and BeautyPlus (48).

BeautyCam (美颜相机) is one of the most used selfie apps in China, with about 1.04 million ratings on the Chinese App Store and more than 100 million installs on Google Play. In October 2026 it was in the top 100 free Photo & Video apps in at least ten countries, from the US and UK to Indonesia and Thailand.

What BeautyCam collects

Apple's privacy label is short. It lists "other diagnostic data" as used to track you across other companies' apps, and a device ID, name, phone number, photos, videos, audio, product interaction and crash data as collected but not linked to you.

The privacy policy, last modified on 16 March 2026, is broader. It lists your IMEI, Android ID, advertising identifiers, ICCID, MAC address and "a list of mobile applications installed on your device". Google Play's data safety section is more specific: installed apps are collected for analytics and advertising, and device IDs are shared with other companies for advertising and fraud prevention. Ad partners in the policy include Tencent, Google and Meta.

Photos stay on the phone for live filters. When you use cloud editing, the policy says photos are uploaded to Meitu's servers along with their EXIF data, which can include the GPS position where the picture was taken. The app also builds metadata about faces, gender and age, which it may use to show "more contextually relevant products or services".

Face data and where it goes

The main policy says facial mapping is used only for the feature you are using and is discarded when the app closes. The section for US users says something else: you agree that Meitu may use facial recognition to collect biometric information "to provide and improve the Service, and for our internal research purposes", with deletion promised for Illinois users within three years of last use. We read the broader clause as the one that counts.

On transfers, the policy says data may be stored anywhere, naming Singapore, China, the US and the EU. Its GDPRGDPRThe EU's General Data Protection Regulation, which sets rules on how organisations collect and use personal data and allows large fines.More in the glossary notice is more concrete. It lists Huawei Cloud and Tencent as processors in the People's Republic of China, Xiamen Home Meitu Technology among Meitu entities there, and OpenAI in the US. The policy is governed by Hong Kong law and adds that Meitu does not "represent or warrant that this Policy complies with the privacy law of any jurisdiction".

The 2025 security flaw

In January 2025 the US National Vulnerability Database published CVE-2024-56947. It describes a flaw in BeautyCam for iPhone, version 12.3.60, that let an attacker reach sensitive user information by getting the user to open a crafted link. It is rated 6.5 (medium). A near-identical flaw in BeautyPlus, CVE-2024-56969, was published the same month. We found no sign it was exploited, and the app has been updated many times since; the current version is 13.3.90. Meitu's HackerOne page is an unclaimed directory entry, so there is no public channel that pays researchers to find the next one.

Your photos and the AI licence

The service agreement, last modified on 1 September 2026, gives Meitu a "non-exclusive, irrevocable, perpetual, transferable, worldwide, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense" to anything you upload, including to "optimize and improve the functions of BeautyCam". A separate section on AI features says inputs and outputs are stored to watch for abuse, and that photos, voice and text you give the AI tools may be used to improve them. There is no opt-out other than not using those tools.

How to use BeautyCam more safely

1. Allow access to selected photos only, not the whole library.
2. Tap "Ask App Not to Track" on an iPhone, or delete the advertising ID on Android.
3. Keep children's photos and other people's faces out of the AI tools, since those uploads fall under the AI licence.
4. Strip location from photos before cloud editing, or turn off location for the camera.
5. Email [email protected] with "BeautyCam" in the title to opt out of interest-based ads; there is no switch in the policy.
6. Cancel VIP through Apple or Google at least a day before renewal; refunds are not offered where the law allows that.

How we scored it

Regulatory record (85) is BeautyCam's strongest factor: no fine, order or block names it, but no regulator has examined it either. Privacy (36) is the weakest, because of installed-app collection for ads, processors in mainland China and a US clause that allows research use of face data. Security (47) reflects the 2025 flaw and thin promises on encryption, and transparency and control (44) the perpetual licence and email-only ad opt-out.