The FaceApp photo filter, which uses AI to digitally age your face, has gone viral, with millions on social media sharing their sagging simulacrum, including celebs such as Drake, the Jonas Brothers and Kevin Hart.
However, The NY Post reports experts are warning that the free “old age filter,” created in 2017 by developers at Wireless Lab in St. Petersburg, Russia, poses security concerns that may give them access to your personal information and identity.
The Russian app is one of the most downloaded across the globe, with fans on social media using the hashtag #faceappchallenge to share their results. The tool augments your face to look double or triple your current age — with wrinkles, sagging and yellowed teeth — and also allows you to look younger, swap genders and try out a beard.
But be warned: FaceApp, which you grant permission to access your photo gallery, also 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.
That means that your face could end up being commercialized — or worse.
UK-based 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.”
That means they can also use your real name, your username or “any likeness provided” in any format without notifying, much less paying, you. They can retain that material as long as they want, even after you delete the app, and you won’t be able to stop them. Even those who set their Apple iOS photo permissions to “never,” as Tech Crunch points out, are not protected against the terms.
U-S Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer has sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and FTC Chairman Joseph Simons saying he was concerned that the app, which is headquartered in Russia, "could pose national security and privacy risks for millions of U.S. citizens."
"In the age of facial recognition technology as both a surveillance and security use, it is essential that users have the information they need to ensure their personal and biometric data remains secure, including from hostile foreign governments," Schumer wrote.
According to The Hill, Schumer is asking the FTC to determine if there are "adequate safeguards" in place to prevent Americans' privacy from being compromised and, if not, to publicly disclose that.
He separately wants the FBI to find out if data being uploaded to FaceApp by Americans is "finding its way into the hands" of Russia's government or companies with ties to the government.
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