SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) – Everyone’s using FaceApp right now, despite it actually launching back in 2017.
If you’re not aware of the FaceApp Challenge, it’s basically celebrities (and everyone else) using the FaceApp to add years and years to their age via the app’s “old age” filter.
The app, created by developers in St. Petersburg, Russia, uses neural networks – a type of artificial intelligence – to create the rendering of what you may look like in the future – adding those extra wrinkles, or sagging skin, maybe even some yellow teeth?
The resurfacing of the FaceApp is bringing along with it some privacy concerns.
Remember when you first download the app, you need to grant the app access to your photos in order to use the app.
However, in FaceApp’s Terms of Service, it says users grant it “a perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, fully-paid, transferrable, sub-licensable license to use, reproduce… create derivative works from … 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.”
Bay Area lawyer Elizabeth Potts Weinstein voiced her concern on Twitter over FaceApp users giving it “a license to use your photos, your name … and your likeness for any purpose including commercial purposes.”
Cyber experts say it’s uncertain what else FaceApp can access and how it might be used.
Tech Crunch points out that even if you set your Apple iOS photo permissions to “never,” you are not protected against the terms.
Security expert Ariel Hochstadt told Daily Mail that hackers, who are not infrequently agents of the Russian government, can log the websites visited and “the activities they perform in those websites,” though they might not know the identity of the person being tracked.
Access to other information the app gets could be used for marketing purposes, also, since according to its privacy notifications, that “may help us or others provide reports or personalized content and ads.”
Age at your own risk.