Viral FaceApp Raises Privacy Concerns

Unless you have abstained from Instagram use all week and failed to pick up a newspaper, you’ll no doubt have heard (and seen) plenty from FaceApp. For the uninitiated, the app went viral this week after many celebrities posted the results of their FaceApp use.

Designed in Russia and around since 2017, the app has only just made headlines thanks to the hashtag #FaceAppChallenge.

The iOS app uses artificial intelligence to change a user’s pictures – either making them appear older (which has triggered dozens of celebrities such as the Jonas Brothers, chef Gordon Ramsey, rapper Drake and TV host Piers Morgan to share the resulting images of their older selves), younger or of the opposite gender. It’s been downloaded millions of times and is trending across the web and social media.

Despite the flurry of popularity and pages of media coverage around the world, the app has also attracted criticism as a darker side has been revealed. The backlash centres on its privacy policy, which goes against much of the trend we have seen towards individual privacy and control across smartphone apps and social media in the last 12 months.

The terms of use effectively give FaceApp full, unlimited and lifetime use of any photos created in the app – with nothing owed to the person taking the photo. It says, “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 all media formats and channels now known or later developed, without compensation to you.” This means that FaceApp users effectively hand over their photos to the app which can then use them now or in the future in any way it sees fit, entirely for free and without having to pay the person in the image for use of their photo.

By effectively stating that users give up all rights to their photo, and revoke all control as to how their content is used and shared publicly with the app, it’s little wonder that privacy concerns are now being raised. There have also been whispers that FaceApp can access all photos on a user’s device, not just those using the FaceApp filter though this has yet to be confirmed.