Everyone’s suddenly posting pictures of what they might look like when they’re old. People are posting results on Twitter, and it’s provided a few good laughs in our work chat. If you’re wondering how they’re doing this, it’s by using an an app called FaceApp, which is now the top trending free app in the iTunes App Store. You can download and use for free for three days.
The surge has sparked calls for caution when using the app amid various claims including that the developers have ties to the Russian government, are creating a massive trove of faces for surveillance purposes and are secretly stealing your phone’s data.
FaceApp was developed by a small team out of Saint-Petersburg, Russia and launched on iOS in January 2017 and hit Android in February of the same year. It’s free but has had its fair share of controversies. Firstly being accused of being racist, and secondly over privacy concerns.
USA Today reports that the app’s privacy policy said it collects the pictures you upload to its service, so keep in mind that it’s keeping the selfies you take. USA Today also writes that one developer, Joshua Nozzi, said on Twitter that it appears the app may try to upload other pictures from your library. If you’re concerned about this, don’t give it access to your photos when it asks, just access to the camera.
The FaceApp #AgeChallenge, also tagged as the #FaceAppChallenge, involves using FaceApp to augment your own or someone else’s face to look old. The app lets you pick a photo from your gallery and — with the help of AI — mercilessly edit it with one of its filters. You can add a new hairstyle, force someone to smile, and two years ago, change their skin tone. That feature was quickly removed after it came under fire when users noticed the app lightened people’s skin to make them more desirable.
Australia’s ABC news quoted the chair of the Australian Privacy Foundation David Vaile who said that “they ask for way more rights than they need to offer the service to you, [they] can remove the data from any effective legal protection regime, share it with almost anyone, and retain it indefinitely.
“It is impossible to tell from this what happens when you upload it, that is the problem. The licence is so lax. They can claim you agree they can send to wherever they like to whoever they like, and so long as there is some connection, [they can] do a lot of things with it.”
