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Is FaceApp’s Data Collection Any Worse Than Facebook’s?
If you’re worried about the data you’re giving FaceApp, there’s a lot more you should think about
Last night, I learned that I am going to be a disgusting, decrepit old man. My beard will be gray, my cheeks will puff out, and my nose will get redder and more bulbous. At least, according to FaceApp.
Like many others online, including Gordon Ramsay, I recently downloaded and used FaceApp, which uses artificial intelligence to alter the appearance of someone in a photograph. It can make you look older or younger (if you don’t have a beard like me), or change your hairstyle or add makeup.
Amid the sudden popularity of FaceApp, some online are raising concerns about the privacy implications of the company’s retention of user data. Wireless Lab, the Russian company that runs FaceApp, retains the ability to use your photos, name, and likeness for any purpose, according to its terms of service. The company is also headquartered in Russia, where tech companies are expected to acquiesce to government demands. Some observers were concerned that the application would upload a user’s entire Camera Roll to the service.
That concern may be slightly out of proportion, considering what the app actually does. “Any information or content that you voluntarily process with the Service, such as User Content, becomes available to the FaceApp anonymously,” the company’s privacy policy says, meaning the photos you send to be altered are FaceApp’s now. Though the company retains a mountain of metadata and device information for marketing and ad-targeting purposes, so do services like Google, Facebook, and Facetune, another popular image-editing app. Meanwhile, security researcher Will Strafach found rumors that FaceApp uploads your entire Camera Roll on iOS to the company to likely be false.
But there’s a bigger question behind the concern: Why would FaceApp want these images to begin with? Even if it weren’t gathering these pictures as part of a state-sponsored surveillance campaign, how could it put them to use?
