Face Filters Privacy

Last updated: October 23, 2026 · Version 2026-10-23

This page explains how face filters in the Rova camera work and what happens to information about your face when you use them. It is part of the Rova Privacy Policy.

1. What face filters do

The Rova camera in the app has two kinds of face filters:

• Lenses, effects such as a helmet, a mask or flowers that sit on your face and move with you.
• Green screen, which puts you in front of a different background.

To place an effect, the camera works out, in real time, where your face and body are in the picture: for example where your eyes and mouth are, or the outline of your body against the background. It does this again for every frame while the camera is open, so the effect stays in place as you move.

Face filters do not identify you or recognize who you are, and they do not read or guess your emotions or expressions.

2. It happens only on your phone

All face and body tracking for face filters happens on your phone, inside the app. The camera picture is not sent anywhere to do it.

• Rova does not receive, store or share your face geometry, a face scan, or any map of your face.
• Our filter provider, DeepAR, does not receive, store or share them either.
• Because Rova never receives this information, we cannot sell it, share it or use it for anything else.

3. How long it is kept

It is not kept. The position of your face and body is worked out for one frame, used to draw the effect on that frame, and then discarded from your phone's memory straight away. It is never saved on your phone, on Rova's servers or by DeepAR.

4. Photos and videos you take

A photo or video you take with a face filter is a normal photo or video with the effect drawn into it. If you post it, it is handled like any other post, as described in the Privacy Policy. If you save it to your phone, it stays on your phone. If you do neither, Rova never receives it.

When you take a photo or video, the app tells Rova which effect you used (for example "Viking") so we can count which effects are popular. That record contains the effect's name, not anything about your face.

5. Our filter provider, DeepAR

Face filters are built with software from DeepAR, which runs on your phone as part of the app. DeepAR's software processes the camera picture on the device.

• DeepAR receives basic device and app information to check its licence: for example the phone model, operating system, app name and version, and screen size. This does not include any picture or anything about your face.
• Rova blocks DeepAR's usage statistics.
• The app may download effect files and DeepAR's tracking software. These are software, not information about you.

6. Your permission, and how to turn it off

Before you use a Lens or Green screen for the first time, the app asks for your permission. If you choose Not now, face filters stay off and the face filter software is not started at all.

You can turn face filters off at any time:

• Simply don't use Lenses or Green screen. Nothing is tracked unless you open one of them.
• Withdraw your permission in Settings. On the website it is Settings → Face filters. After you withdraw, the app will ask again before it uses face filters.

We keep a record of your choice (that you allowed or withdrew permission, when, and on which app version) so we can honour it. That record contains nothing about your face.

If we change how face filters work in a way that matters for your privacy, we will update this page and ask for your permission again.

7. Photo backdrops are different

Separately from Green screen, you can choose a new background for a photo after you take it. That is not a face filter. The photo is sent to Rova, and our server cuts out the outline of the person in it so the new background can go behind them. This uses an outline of the whole person, not face geometry, and no face detection. The outline is kept with that photo so you can change the background again later.

8. Questions

Questions about face filters or this page? Reach us through the report an issue page, or write to Rova Inc., PO Box 530264, Henderson, NV 89012, United States.