Right now social media is overloaded with the pictures of celebrities and people posting their pictures of their older version. This has been possible because of a FaceApp, which can turn anyone’s picture into a younger version or older version.
The app has gone viral in a short span and become very popular among social media users and celebrities. But with its popularity, the app has also been criticized for privacy concerns.
Let’s look about the app in detail.
What is FaceApp
FaceApp is a mobile application for iOS and Android, developed by a Russian Company Wireless Lab which uses artificial intelligence to automatically generate a highly realistic transformation of faces. The app can transform a face to make it look older or younger and can also swap gender.
The app was launched in 2017 and was termed as a “revolutionary” selfie app. However, this time the app has been updated with an improved old age-filter, which led to an ongoing #FaceApp Challenge which is hitting the internet with photos of people revealing their greyed and wrinkled appearances to the world.
How FaceApp Works
The app uses a neutral network, which is a kind of artificial intelligence. After installing the app, the app welcomes the user with a quick four type tutorial on how to use the app. Though the app doesn’t require login or access to e-mail or phone number but it requires access to users’ phone gallery.
After this, the user can choose a photo and can add filers and lenses. The app provides three options Editor, Fun and Layout. The Editor allows the user to add smiles, beard, hair-color, hairstyle, sunglasses, etc. It also allows to change the background of a photo, adds effect, crop and improve the photo with various adjustments. All of these have sub-filters, for instance, the age filter allows the user to turn the picture into a younger or older version.
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The Fun section ‘celebs’ option which has filters like Hollywood, Bollywood, Young and Female hd that can edit a photo with just one tap. Every edited photo can be saved on the device and can be shared on various social media.
The app is free of cost and some of the filters and editing tools are open to all, however, to earn full access, users have to opt for subscription a plan.
CRITICISM
Though the app is super fun to use but it has also invited various privacy concerns. The app requires access to the users’ gallery i.e. it owns images uploaded to its service and can use it anyway. According to its privacy policy, the service providers may transfer information that they collect about the users, including personal information across borders. The information collected by the app can also be transferred from one country (user’s country) to other countries.
Also, the photos can be used for facial recognition technology by any government or non-government agencies or by foreign companies.
After all the privacy concerns, the app has responded with a clarification which has assured the users that their data is safe and the app doesn’t sell or share the users’ data with any third party.
