If you haven't come across people looking obnoxiously old on social media, you've certainly been living under a rock.
You simply cannot scroll through your Facebook or Twitter page before getting a rude shock of what your friends might look like in the year 2050.?
But just in case you happen to see one and are curious about how you might look, here's a little warning.?
According to Forbes, over 100,000 million people have downloaded FaceApp from Google Play and?by over 50 million people across other platforms including Apple¡¯s iOS.
According to reports, in the app's?Terms and Conditions says that they have the right to modify, reproduce and publish any of the images you process through its AI.
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. When you post or otherwise share User Content on or through our Services, you understand that your User Content and any associated information (such as your [username], location or profile photo) will be visible to the public.
As noted by a writer named Peter Kostadinov in a blog, "Essentially, once you download and use FaceApp, you're giving this Russian company the exclusive right to do whatever it desires with any photo you upload to the app. You might end up on a billboard somewhere in Moscow, but your face will most likely end up training some AI facial-recognition algorithm.
"The worst part is that this right is irrevocable, meaning you can't just delete your profile from the app and the app itself and expect Wireless Lab to stop using your content as it sees fit."
Security expert Ariel Hochstadt told Daily Mail that?even if hackers aren¡¯t exactly working with the Russian government, says Hochstadt, ¡°With so many breaches, they can get information and hack cameras that are out there, and be able to create a database of people all over the world, with information these people didn¡¯t imagine is collected on them.¡±
But there's another side to this controversy, many argue that the privacy breach that Faceapp poses is the same as that of Facebook and other social media apps that access your data.?
Faceapp will not work unless users grant it permission to view their photos. On installing the app, users are asked for permission to ¡°access photos media, files and files¡±.?
The Wire quotes Christine Bannan, consumer protection counsel at the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center as saying, "People give photos to lots of different apps. I think this is probably getting attention because it's Russian developers,"
Just like Faceapp's terms and conditions, we've all given Facebook the right to tap into a our data trove and their terms are similar to that of Faceapp.?
Here's what facebook's privacy policy says:?
¡°when you share, post, or upload content that is covered by intellectual property rights (like photos or videos) on or in connection with our Products, you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, and worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content (consistent with your privacy and application settings).¡±
Before you want to freak out about Faceapp,? just consider what are the other social media channels that already have access to your data.?