FaceApp Viralization raises privacy concerns; company responds

If you have followed social networks in recent days, you have probably seen (or tested) the FaceAppis an app that uses artificial intelligence to age and rejuvenate people (among other options) in virtually any image. However, many users end up missing some important questions, such as your own privacy.

Recently, a theory has emerged on the web that startup Russian developer of the app would be sending background images to third-party servers, as reported by Bloomberg. That didn't seem like a problem at first, according to Guardian security researcher and CEO Will Strafach.

FaceApp, however, reported Bloomberg The app actually sends photos to a cloud server, which is required for image processing unlike other apps, such as Apple's, which perform all tasks on the device itself.

THE startup also states that no user data is transferred to Russia, where the app's research and development team is located. In this sense, FaceApp's founder admitted that the company uses servers from Amazon and Google, both based in the United States; He further stated that the service does not sell or share user data to third parties.

Another concern about the app was raised by journalist Karissa Bell on Twitter. According to her, the app would be allowed access to photos of the device even when this option was disabled in the system settings.

Re: FaceApp, I can't claim that he is uploading my photos, but the app is definitely able to access my library, even if the Photos app permission is set to “Never” 🤔

Amazing as it sounds, this is a feature actually possible from an API of Apple's own operating system. Beginning with iOS 11, even if a user defines that a particular app cannot access your Photo Library, the software can access it if that is its primary function, allowing you to upload an image to your liking.

FaceApp further details that “it can store in the cloud the photos that users have uploaded to the app for a short time” more specifically 48 hours, claiming that this is done to improve service performance and traffic, ensuring that processing of images sent repeatedly to new editions is faster. According to FaceApp, most of photos deleted from servers after 48h sent.

The developer also explains that users may request that their data be deleted from the servers. While there is still no direct way to do this, you can contact the FaceApp team from the “Report an Error” button in the app's support settings. The company said it is working on a better interface for this type of request.

Finally, the startup It says that the vast majority of FaceApp users are not registered on the platform, which makes it not possible to link certain photos to user identities in most cases. We hope so.


FaceApp - Face Editor with AI app icon