Aged yourself on the FaceApp yet? Here's what you need to know about privacy concerns
The app has gone viral in the last week after hundreds of
thousands of users began digitally 'aging' themselves.
Source: https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/aged-yourself-faceapp-yet-heres-what-you-need-know-about-privacy-concerns-105750
- Friday, July 19, 2019 - 16:37
The internet was filled with pictures of what people
would like if they were much older — and all of these pictures had been
uploaded to FaceApp, an app developed a team of Russian developers. The
app has gained viral fame — for the second time since 2017 — with
celebrities jumping on the bandwagon as well. At one point, the app
allowed people to switch races, as well as swap genders.
However, the sheer number of people posting the picture of what they would look like with wrinkles and gray hair raised a valid concern — what was the app going to do with these pictures and were they any protections for the wealth of data it had procured?
Here’s everything you need to know about the controversy surrounding the app:
However, the sheer number of people posting the picture of what they would look like with wrinkles and gray hair raised a valid concern — what was the app going to do with these pictures and were they any protections for the wealth of data it had procured?
Here’s everything you need to know about the controversy surrounding the app:
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There were claims that FaceApp uploaded not just one, but all of a user’s photos to the cloud. However, this has since been debunked.
“FaceApp performs most of the photo processing in the cloud. We only
upload a photo selected by a user for editing. We never transfer any
other images from the phone to the cloud,” the company said in a
statement after privacy concerns arose. The company added, “We might
store an uploaded photo in the cloud. The main reason for that is
performance and traffic: we want to make sure that the user doesn’t
upload the photo repeatedly for every edit operation. Most images are
deleted from our servers within 48 hours from the upload date."
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Multiple users online started posting screenshots of the app’s
privacy. One particular paragraph that alarmed users was: “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
media formats and channels now known or later developed, without
compensation to you.”
While this certainly doesn’t loo3k good for the app, points were raised about widely used social media websites and applications, such as Facebook, that weren’t much better. Facebook, especially, has been flagged for privacy concerns multiple times.
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Another aspect that fueled concerns was that the company was
Russian, and that the data would be used by the Russian government.
“Even though the core R&D team is located in Russia, the user data
is not transferred to Russia,” the company said in its statement. Their
servers are in the US. It also added that they “don’t sell or share any
user data with any third parties.”
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US Senator Chuck Schumer asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) and the Federal Trade Commission to conduct a national security
and privacy investigation into the app.
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While users only have the company’s word that the images are
deleted from the servers, the company said that users can approach them
for their data to be deleted, and outlined the way users can approach
the company for deletion.
Source: https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/aged-yourself-faceapp-yet-heres-what-you-need-know-about-privacy-concerns-105750
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