Communications of the ACM
FaceApp Lets You 'Age' a Photo by Decades. Does It Also Violate Your Privacy?
Russia-based Wireless Lab's FaceApp faces backlash amid charges that it collects far more data than users realized.
Credit: Jonas Brothers
Russia-based Wireless Lab's FaceApp recently saw a significant boost in popularity as a range of celebrities used the app's age filter to provide realistic glimpses of what they could look like decades in the future.
The app now faces backlash amid charges that it collects far more data than users realized.
In addition, the Democratic National Committee sent out an alert urging staff members on presidential campaigns to delete the app immediately, citing its ties to Russia.
However, at least some of those concerns are overblown, according to several security researchers.
Said Baptiste Robert, a French security researcher, “The info sent by the application was only my device model, my device ID and Android version, which is very limited information and is quite common for an application.”
The app, however, also uploaded the photo that a user wanted to manipulate to FaceApp servers, without user consent.
From The New York Times
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Abstracts Copyright © 2019 SmithBucklin, Washington, DC, USA
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