YouCam Makeup

Is YouCam Makeup safe?

YouCam Makeup handles faces more carefully than most beauty apps, but it is built around advertising and is too loosely rated for children. Perfect Corp., its Taiwanese maker, says most face mapping happens on your phone and cloud try-on photos are deleted after use. The catches are elsewhere. Apple's label says the app tracks your location, device and activity across other companies' apps. The policy names 14 ad partners. The App Store rates it 9+ although Perfect's own policy says it is not for children under 13. And India has banned it since 2020. We score it 53/100, ahead of BeautyPlus (48) and behind Facetune (58).

Who makes YouCam Makeup

Perfect Corp. is based in New Taipei City and listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Its annual report says its apps had passed 1.1 billion downloads by the end of 2025, with about 908,000 paying subscribers. It also sells virtual try-on technology to beauty brands, which is why its privacy policy covers both app users and business customers. The app itself is sold on the App Store by Perfect Mobile Corp.

Being a US-listed company means regular disclosure to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The 2025 annual report describes yearly risk assessments, external penetration tests, multifactor authentication policies and board oversight of cybersecurity. It reports no incident that materially affected the company. That is more than most app makers publish, though it is not an audit of the app.

YouCam Perfect, the sister photo editor

Perfect Corp.'s other big consumer app is YouCam Perfect, a selfie and photo editor. It is now an Android app only: in October 2026 its App Store listing no longer opened in the US, UK, Japan or Taiwan, while Google Play showed more than 100 million installs and about 2.05 million reviews. Its Play listing links to the same YouCam B2C privacy policy, so the same terms, including the biometric consent condition below, cover it. Its Play data safety form, like YouCam Makeup's, says no data is shared with other companies, which that policy contradicts.

Face data and the BIPA section

The YouCam B2C privacy policy, effective June 2026, treats photos, videos and face geometry as biometric information. Its Illinois section says Perfect does not use facial recognition to identify people. Most features detect facial feature vectors on the device, and nothing is stored on Perfect's servers. Cloud features, such as some virtual try-ons and AI photo enhancement, upload a photo and delete it after use. There are exceptions. Photos you ask to have emailed to you may sit on its email server for up to three years, and AI models generated from your photos may be kept for up to a year with your consent.

The catch is that consent is not optional. The policy says agreeing to the collection and processing of your biometric information "is a condition to you using our Services". Perfect's SEC filing also says the company and some of its brand customers have been named in lawsuits under Illinois' biometric law over its try-on technology. We found no ruling against the app, and lawsuits count only as context in our scoring.

Ads and tracking

This is where YouCam Makeup loses most points. Apple's label lists coarse location, device ID, product interaction and advertising data as used to track you. It lists photos or videos as linked to your identity for "other purposes", and email as linked for Perfect's own marketing. The privacy policy names 14 advertising partners: Facebook, Google, Smaato, PubMatic, Index Exchange, Magnite, OpenX, AppLovin, aarki, Liftoff, Unruly, fluct, InMobi and Chocolate Platform. Opting out relies on the industry tools from the Digital Advertising Alliance and the Network Advertising Initiative, not an in-app switch.

Google Play's data safety form says the app shares no data with other companies, which is hard to square with the policy. It does list approximate and precise location, photos, messages and app activity as collected. Under our rules we score the broader disclosure.

The India ban

On 29 June 2020 India's IT ministry blocked 59 apps under Section 69A of its IT Act, citing reports of apps "stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users' data" to servers outside India. "YouCam makeup" was on the list alongside TikTok, BeautyPlus and Meitu, though Perfect is Taiwanese. Perfect's 2025 annual report says the ban remains in effect. It adds that Indian authorities rejected several appeals on national security grounds without a detailed explanation. Under our rules a national block whose stated reason is data handling counts as an order, which puts regulatory record at 60.

Age rating and community features

The App Store rates YouCam Makeup 9+, citing infrequent horror themes and advertising. The privacy policy says the service is not directed to children under 13. The September 2026 terms go further and say you must be of legal age in your country to register. Perfect's filing notes that YouCam Makeup has "the attributes of social media" and that an internal team monitors uploads. A 9+ rating on an app with ads, community posts and face retouching is a real gap, and we take points off for it.

How to use YouCam Makeup more safely

1. Deny the tracking prompt on an iPhone, and delete or reset the advertising ID on Android.
2. Turn off precise location for the app; makeup try-on does not need it.
3. Skip the "save and share" by email option, which keeps photos for up to three years.
4. Keep children under 13 off the app, whatever the store rating says.
5. Cancel subscriptions through Apple or Google; the terms send other disputes to arbitration in Taipei.

How we scored it

Scams and harmful content (64) is YouCam Makeup's strongest factor, held back by the 9+ rating. Privacy (42) is the weakest, because of cross-app tracking, 14 ad partners and a Play form that understates sharing. Security (57) reflects a clean breach record and SEC cybersecurity disclosure without a bug bounty. Regulatory record (60) reflects the Indian ban. For an editor with fewer ad ties, see FaceApp.