Is FACE APP a trustworthy app?
It is available on Play Store and AppStore also for download in mobiles, As this face editing tool went viral in a few days, so some security terms and conditions have raised.
Is FACE APP a trustworthy app?
By: Zaara Malik
Faceapp got hype in early 2017, it transforms pictures making them look older or younger, male or female, or adding a smile. Once again in July 2019, face app is in action and it’s on-trend on Google.com, Celebrities including the Jonas Brothers, Drake, and Dwayne Wade appeared to used this app to show how they will look when they get older. Later, thousands of people rush to download the app and share the results of their own experiments. This app is currently the top free app in Apple’s App Store.
It is available on Play Store and AppStore also for download in mobiles, As this face editing tool went viral in a few days, so some security terms and conditions have raised. Josh Nozzi, the app developer raised the alarm about the app that it is covertly harvesting the entire camera roll of your smartphone, and later all the security researchers knocked down the fear.
Pictures it got deleted within 48 hours from their servers.
However, a French cyber-security researcher Elliot Alderson investigated Mr. Nozzi’s claims. And he found that no such bulk uploading was going on, the app is just uploading the specific photos which user is selecting to be uploaded. The company claims that after uploading the pictures it got deleted within 48 hours from their servers.
Everyone says face app train facial recognition algorithms
Everyone says face app train facial recognition algorithms, but the firm’s chief executive, Yaroslav Goncharov told BBC News that they don’t use photos for facial recognition training they only edit pictures. Now the question is raised that why FaceApp needs to upload from mobile gallery photos when the app could in theory just process images locally on smartphones rather than send them to the cloud. Well, in the face app case, the serves which stores the photos user uploads is located in the US, and FaceApp itself is a Russian company.
Manchun Wong a cybersecurity researcher tweeted that this may give a competitive advantage to the face app because it’s hard for others to develop a similar app which can work in the algorithms. Here comes some reason issue regarding Faceapp which is highlighted by the Privacy advocate Pat Walshe in the privacy policy that says some user data may be tracked for the purposes of targeting ads. Actually, the app is also embedding Google Admob, which serves Google ads to users.
Must Read: New Features in WhatsApp
FACE APP privacy policy were generic
In reply, Mr. Goncharov said that the terms in FaceApp’s privacy policy were generic and the company does not share any data for ad-targeting purposes. And he added that the app made money through paid subscriptions for premium features.
A spokeswoman from ICO said that we advise people who are singing up Faceapp to check how they will look like, they should be aware of that what will happen to their personal information from mobile data and not provide any personal details until they are clear about how they will be used anywhere.