How safe is FaceApp that gives a peek in your future

The FaceApp is the latest application that has gone viral among the smartphone users. The app gives a peek in to the future as it shows how your current face can look when you grow old. With the help of artificial intelligence, it transforms the current face in to your younger and older selves. While a peek in to the future can be interesting, but questions are being raised about its privacy.

People on the social network have raised concerns relating to FaceApp that iPhones, FaceApp would be able to see and upload all the photos including screen shots with sensitive financial or health information or photos of kids with the names of their schools in the background. This might not be true but is a good reminder to think twice before downloading the new apps. The fact is that even the large mainstream apps routinely collect data of the users.

Many of the apps that are trendy at the moment, are guilty of taking user data as the primary purpose. Some of the personality quizzes on Facebook and similar services collect user information as a business. Security researcher and Guardian Firewall CEO Will Strafach, while talking about FaceApp said, it takes a picture only if the user specifically selects it to see their face change. The confusion is created by an iPhone feature that shows the picture library in the app. It is an Apple feature that allows the users to select a specific picture but does not give a full access to the library even if it may appear that way.

The users have an option to grant access to the entire photo library but even then, it cannot be said that the app is uploading anything other than the photo that is selected. Strafach said, “I’m always looking for privacy concerns”. There is also a version of FaceApp for Android, but those phones do not tap photo libraries the same way.

Photo Credits: Metro