Sometime last year, FaceApp became a ‘thing’ on social media. People from all over the world downloaded it to see what they would look like if they were older, if they had facial hair, if they were younger, or if they were a different gender. Well, the app seems to be making a comeback – at least in my circle.
One scroll down Facebook and literally every single post that I see is of a male friend transformed into a female version of himself. Is FaceApp safe, though?
Almost exactly a year ago, developer Joshua Nozzi accused FaceApp for uploading all of the photos found in a user’s phone as opposed to just the ones you select. He also claimed that Russia might be involved in the company, which brought about concerns about Russian involvement with data-related matters in the US.
A few days later, though, security researcher Elliott Alderson debunked those claims with evidence that pointed to the contrary:
There is few calls to their backends:
– Get hosts
– Get demo data
– Register your device4/n pic.twitter.com/fW6K2yqpRr
— Baptiste Robert (@fs0c131y) July 16, 2019
FaceApp also released a statement about it, saying that they ‘might store an uploaded photo in the cloud’ ‘to make sure that the user doesn’t upload the photo repeatedly for every edit operation’. They also assured that ‘most images are deleted from our servers within 48 hours from the upload date’. They also clarified that ‘even though the core R&D team is located in Russia, the user data is not transferred to Russia’.
Despite earlier claims being false, though, it would still be important to remember to think twice before downloading apps that go viral. While they may be popular and in trend, there might be privacy concerns involved. Please don’t forget to always do your research before blindly jumping onto bandwagons. Stay safe both online and offline, guys!
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