Photo Credit: Viral Trend
Over the last few days, the #faceappchallenge has swept through social media like a raging fire. It involves downloading a selfie-editing tool called FaceApp and then using any of its filters to digitally alter your facial look. Then you go ahead to post a photo of both pictures on the Internet and this attracts a lot of laughs.
On Monday, as the #faceappchallenge went viral, Joshua Nozzi, a software developer, warned people to “BE CAREFUL WITH FACEAPP….it immediately uploads your photos without asking, whether you chose one or not”. Some media outlets picked this claim up and privacy concerns about the app began to mount.
Concerns became crazier when it was pointed out that the FaceApp is Russian. Wow! The app you are willing to give all your facial data to has its company’s located in St Petersburg, Russia. We all know what the Russians are like, right?!
By Wednesday things calmed down a bit after checks were carried out and it was found out that the app was not actually uploading your entire camera roll – just the photo you were modifying. Which is totally normal for most apps, it actually just gets your device ID and model. The only reason why people got scared was that it was Russian.
FaceApp also responded to the controversy, telling 9to5Mac on Wednesday that it “might store” some uploaded photos in the cloud for “performance and traffic” reasons. It also said that while the app’s “core R&D team is located in Russia, the user data is not transferred to Russia”.
Photo Credit: Sun-times
Also, Nozzi, the developer who raised the Alarm issued an acknowledgment of fault and error and has since deleted his original tweet.
Does this now mean that everything is well and good? Well not exactly, because according to FaceApp’s terms of service, when you use the app you grant it a “perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide” license to do whatever it wants with your photos. While this may not be totally bad, it’s worth pointing out that it’s the same as the privacy policy of basically every other tech service and platform.
So if you didn’t participate in the #faceappchallenge because you were concerned about the privacy policy, well good for you! After getting all this info you may feel safer, even if you don’t, chances are there’s nothing extra sneaky about this app that is different from many other apps.
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