Wink

Is Wink safe?

Wink is low-risk in the ways parents usually worry about, but it hands a lot of data to a company that may process it in China. It is an AI video and photo enhancer from Meitu, the Chinese maker of the Meitu editor, and it has spread fast: it sits in the Photo & Video charts across Asia, Europe and the Americas, and has passed 50 million installs on Google Play. We found no breach or fine. The weak points are in the paperwork. The policy names four processors in mainland China, links to about 30 ad companies and lets US face data be used for research. The terms take a perpetual licence to what you upload. We score it 52/100, level with AirBrush and above Meitu (50).

Where your videos go

Wink's privacy policy, last modified on 10 July 2026, comes from Meitu (China) Limited and its affiliates. Its general clause says information may be stored anywhere, naming Hong Kong, the People's Republic of China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the US and the EU. The section for European users is more specific than most. It names Tencent Holdings, Alibaba (China), Huawei Cloud and Beijing Volcano Engine, ByteDance's cloud business, as processors located in the People's Republic of China. The South Korean section gives China and Singapore as the destinations of transfers.

That matters more for Wink than for a filter app. Its main job is to upload your clips and run them through cloud AI: upscaling to 4K, repairing old home videos, removing objects. Paid plans also include "My Space" cloud storage, so some of your videos stay on Meitu's servers until you delete them. Google Play's data safety form says photos and videos are shared with other companies for app functionality.

Ads and tracking

Apple's label is short. It lists identifiers as used to track you across other companies' apps, and contact info, photos or videos, identifiers, usage data and diagnostics as collected but not linked to you. The policy describes more. It collects device identifiers and "a list of mobile applications installed on your device", and with your consent Wink and its ad partners may collect your advertising ID, location and IP address. It links to a Meitu list of about 30 ad companies, updated in September 2026, including Google, Meta, ByteDance's Pangle, AppLovin, Unity, Moloco and iQIYI. Under our rule that the broader disclosure counts, privacy is Wink's weakest factor at 36.

Wink does better than its sister apps on one point. The policy points to an in-app switch for personalised ad recommendations, where Meitu and BeautyPlus ask you to send an email.

Face data and the AI licence

Wink's portrait tools detect faces in every frame to smooth skin, refine jawlines and reshape bodies. The general section of the policy says facial mapping is discarded when the feature finishes and is not shared. The US section says something broader. You agree that Meitu "may use facial recognition technology to collect biometric information" from your photos to improve the service and "for our internal research purposes", and Illinois users' data is deleted within three years of their last use.

The service agreement, also dated 10 July 2026, gives Meitu a "non-exclusive, irrevocable, perpetual, transferable, worldwide, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense" to your content. An AI addendum adds that inputs to AI features may be used to improve those features. Disputes go to the courts of Hong Kong.

Subscriptions

Most of Wink's best tools sit behind VIP plans. In the US they run from $7.99 a week to $59.99 a year, with a VIP+ tier at $19.99 a month or $99.99 a year. The terms say payments are non-refundable where the law allows, including for partial periods, though EU and UK users keep a 14-day statutory withdrawal right.

How to use Wink more safely

1. Turn off personalised ad recommendations in the app's privacy settings, and refuse tracking on an iPhone.
2. Give Wink access to selected photos and videos only.
3. Do not upload clips of other people, especially children, to the AI tools without their agreement.
4. Delete videos from My Space when you no longer need them, and delete your account if you stop using the app.
5. Choose a yearly plan over the weekly one if you subscribe, and cancel in the store at least 24 hours before renewal.

How we scored it

Regulatory record (85) is Wink's strongest factor: we found no fine, order or national block naming it, although no regulator has examined it either. Privacy (36) is the weakest, because of the Chinese processors, the long ad partner list and research use of US face data. Security (50) reflects a clean breach record but vague encryption promises and no bug bounty. For another big Chinese editor, compare ByteDance's CapCut (53).