FaceApp has been a viral sensation recently as more people are posting pictures of themselves using the app. If you have a Facebook page, you’ve most likely seen your friends, relatives, or even yourself posting what they would look like as an older person. This isn’t the first time that FaceApp has been in the news.
Back when the app was first released in 2017, there was a lot of press around how it made people look younger or older, male or female, or even adding features to their physical face to add a smile or make them look happier. It was truly a revolutionary technology in today’s modern world full of crazy and fun apps we enjoy sharing a social media.
Even as many celebrities use such applications, promoting FaceApp for their millions of followers, there are a lot of growing concerns about the use of this app. You might’ve seen a certain New York tabloid headline that said Russians now own all of your photos. No doubt the headline was sensationalized and meant to scare people, but is there any reality to it?
FaceApp and the Privacy of Users
There are a lot of questions around whether or not we should be using social media. Sign up for a website, we often click through that we’ve read the terms without actually reading them so we can start posting. You essentially get Facebook permission to use your data, and then act shocked when they do.
This is the same warning many are giving about FaceApp. They say that the headquarters of the company is based in St. Petersburg, Russia, meaning if you have the app on your phone, a Russian company has access to some of your data. Did you read the terms and conditions? Was there any fine print that you didn’t see? Or did you just follow along with the latest trend?
It’s almost as if we don’t care about Digital privacy whatsoever. We don’t think about or even consider where our information goes. Every time a movie star has her nude pictures stolen plastered all over the Internet, it makes you wonder how certain things like that happen. It should happen more often considering the apps we download onto our digital devices.
What is Done with Our Data?
“Most images are deleted from our servers within 48 hours from the upload date,” the company said in a lengthy statement.
But if you read the terms and agreements page, it says that by downloading the app, you “grant FaceApp a perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, fully-paid, transferable sublicensable 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.”
That simply means that FaceApp can do whatever they want with your picture. You download the app, hit agree, then they can do what they want. You just gave them full permission and rights. It’s just like Facebook’s terms: “If you share a photo on Facebook, you give us permission to store, copy, and share it with others,” the social network says.
We are not careful with our digital privacy. If this bothers you, then you should start reading the terms and agreements. Know exactly where your information, data, and pictures are being sent and how they’re being used.
