You’ve probably seen the aged version of the celebrities you follow, the friends you have and perhaps even yourself recently.
These photos – which have been spreading through social media like a virus – are the product of the super famous and free FaceApp. You simply take a picture of your face or upload a picture with faces and, with the click of a button, it can – among other features – make you look older in a more realistic way than one is used to in such apps.
But here’s the catch: by downloading and using the FaceApp you’re giving the people behind it the permission to basically use the photos you upload, as they please!
FaceApp’s privacy policy states that your IP address, your location and your log file are up for grabs for the purpose of targeting you with advertisements that are most relevant to your interest and that’s not new. Facebook, Instagram and Google already do that.
The new – and concerning part – about FaceApp appears in their terms of service which reads that “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.”
Still curious about the app’s developers and your pictures’ whereabouts? Well, the developer company that gave birth to FaceApp is based in St. Petersburg, Russia. According to Forbes, Baptiste Robert, a security researcher who goes by the pseudonym ‘Elliot Alderson’ found out that the app only takes the faces we submit to it and sends them to company servers that are mostly situated in America but also in Ireland, Singapore and Australia. And that these servers are mostly owned by Amazon and Google. Forbes itself conducted a cursory at hosting records (that clarify which servers host what data) and confirmed that.
Still willing to use FaceApp? You’ve been warned!
