The viral app Faceapp came into play this week and has taken the digital world by storm. All around social media, everyone is using the app to know how they’d look like come 60 years from now. Cool. But is it?
Viral app FaceApp has been giving people the power to change their facial expressions, looks, and now age for several years. But at the same time, people have been giving FaceApp the power to use their pictures — and names — for any purpose it wishes, for as long as it desires. – Forbes
What is FaceApp?
It’s not a new app. They’ve been around since 2017 actually.
FaceApp is a free mobile application available in the Apple App Store and on Google Play for Android devices. Using artificial intelligence – AI, the app creates realistic transformations of users’ faces using various filters and features. The app has been reviewed almost 200,000 times in the App Store, and carries a 4.7 rating.
What’s the catch with FaceApp?
There are many security concerns with this app and I’ll list them below:
When you grant permission to access your photo gallery, Faceapp includes in their Terms and Conditions that they have the right to modify, reproduce and publish any of the images you process through its AI.
You grant FaceApp a perpetual, irrevocable… royalty-free… license to use, adapt, publish, distribute your user content… in all media formats… when you post or otherwise share, so don’t get all royal when you see your celebrity face on a billboard WITHOUT acknowledgement OR compensation.
The need for caution
Most iphones now allow you to use facial recognition to access your phone, and guess what? You just handed that right over to FaceApp. That’s not just risky but extremely careless, if I do say so myself.
“Your face is now a form of copyright where you need to be really careful who you give permission to access your biometric data… If you start using that willy-nilly, in the future when we’re using our face to access things, like our money and credit cards, then what we’ve done is we’ve handed the keys to others.” — NYPOST
Read for yourself:
“You grant FaceApp a perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, fully-paid, transferable sub-licensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, publicly perform and display your User Content and any name, username or likeness provided in connection with your User Content in all media formats and channels now known or later developed, without compensation to you. When you post or otherwise share User Content on or through our Services, you understand that your User Content and any associated information (such as your [username], location or profile photo) will be visible to the public.”
In this world of security and privacy concerns, a little caution is more than necessary. But if you think entertainment of using FaceApp is worth the fact that your picture can be used in Russia somewhere, please go right ahead!
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