You may have seen friends and family posting photos of themselves as they'll look in 20 years. They're using a popular app called FaceApp (iOS and Android), which uses AI to transform a photo in seconds, blending in facial features like wrinkles, age spots, gray hair, and teeth yellowing. But as curious as you may be to see your future self, don't get caught up in the fun.
Instead of processing your photo on your you device, the app sends it to the cloud. And by uploading your photo, you're agreeing to give the company behind the app, a Russian startup, the rights to use your photo.
As the FaceApp terms state: “You grant FaceApp a perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, fully-paid, transferable sub-licensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, publicly perform and display your User Content and any name, username or likeness provided in connection with your User Content in all media formats and channels now known or later developed, without compensation to you.”
You're also giving the company rights to use your photos for commercial purposes — ads, billboards etc. "By using the Services, you agree that the User Content may be used for commercial purposes. You further acknowledge that FaceApp’s use of the User Content for commercial purposes will not result in any injury to you or to any person you authorized to act on its behalf."
The company told TechCrunch that it only stores the photo for processing, it never sends the photos to Russia, and that it usually deletes the photos within 48 hours.
What you can do if you uploaded a photo to FaceApp
You can't revoke your agreement to the FaceApp terms. But, FaceApp does accept requests from users to remove all their data from FaceApp servers. The fastest way is to send your requests from the FaceApp mobile app using Settings > Support > Report a bug with the word “privacy” in the subject line.
[Image credit: Techlicious/FaceApp]
