FaceApp security concerns: What you need to know before downloading the app

FaceApp security concerns: What you need to know before downloading the app

Social Media has been awash with images edited by a popular ‘aging app’ called FaceApp that uses artificial intelligence to alter your photos.

On Wednesday, a huge number of netizens had downloaded the app specifically for its aging feature that generally shows you how you might look when you get old.

Amidst all the fun and games, there were a number of security concerns from all over the world on the privacy of the application and just how much information the app might collect.

(Comedian Sleepy David/Instagram)

FaceApp’s engineers are based in Russia and understandably, many questions were raised on how the information collected would be used.

FaceApp immediately responded to these concerns and assured all users that their information is safe and will not be shared with any third parties.

(Shaffie Weru/Instagram)

It gave a statement on the same and highlighted six key areas of concern.

1. FaceApp performs most of the photo processing in the cloud. We only upload a photo selected by a user for editing. We never transfer any other images from the phone to the cloud.
2. We might store an uploaded photo in the cloud. The main reason for that is performance and traffic: we want to make sure that the user doesn’t upload the photo repeatedly for every edit operation. Most images are deleted from our servers within 48 hours from the upload date.
3. We accept requests from users for removing all their data from our servers. Our support team is currently overloaded, but these requests have our priority. For the fastest processing, we recommend sending the requests from the FaceApp mobile app using “Settings->Support->Report a bug” with the word “privacy” in the subject line. We are working on the better UI for that.
4. All FaceApp features are available without logging in, and you can log in only from the settings screen. As a result, 99% of users don’t log in; therefore, we don’t have access to any data that could identify a person.
5. We don’t sell or share any user data with any third parties.
6. Even though the core R&D team is located in Russia, the user data is not transferred to Russia.

By Vincent Kejitan

–standardmedia.co.ke