Source: PeopleImages / Getty
The #Faceappchallenge is a new trend that has completely taken social media by storm, the challenge uses an app called Face App which uses artificial intelligence to digitally age your face.
This challenge has been done by celebs like Drake, Kevin Hart, and even the Jonas Brothers.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz-J1E7FhzD/
Since the app has become wildly popular in the last 24 hours, people have done some deeper digging into who exactly is behind this app. As it turns out the app is owned by Wireless Labs, a company based out of St. Petersburg, Russia, and it gives them access to your personal information, and private data.
The app allows you to simulate age to your face, it allows you to see what a younger version of yourself looks like, and it even allows you to switch genders, or add a beard, but in order to do this, you must first grant the app access to your photo gallery, that’s when the issues begin.
Once you grant them access to your gallery, it means they are completely within their legal right to monetarily commercialize your face without acknowledging you, much less paying you for it.
Digitas strategist James Whatley said on Twitter, “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.”
Look closely at the privacy settings below.
The TOS also states that “The manner, mode, and extent of such advertising, and promotions are subject to change without specific notice to you.”
This means they can use those photos that they were granted access to, to advertise anything they so desire.
Beyond the world of just advertising, the app is vulnerable to hackers, these hackers can also gain access to your camera, which can then be used to secretly record your face, and store information saved on your phone.
Once hackers have that information they can cross reference the data with their incredibly large database on Facebook.
In a technologically advanced world where hacking is become ever prevalent, in the very near future, our biometric data (face, and fingerprints) may be our only means of “privately” accessing private information.
Professionals warn to be very careful about how you disseminate access to such things.
Due to all the security concerns, FaceApp released a statement to Tech Crunch, attempting to address user’s concerns.
“Most images are deleted from our servers within 48 hours from the upload date,” FaceApp said in the statement. “We accept requests from users for removing all their data from our servers. Our support team is currently overloaded, but these requests have our priority.”
NOTE: This article is not meant to be some scare tactic to make you go off the grid, ruin all the fun, it’s just a warning on how our privacy can be unknowingly invaded.
