A photo editing app has introduced a few new wrinkles to the faces of celebrities — and to the ongoing discussion around personal digital security, NBC reports.
FaceApp, a more than 2-year-old app created by a Russia-based developer, has seen a recent spike in use due to some celebrities and influencers taking part in the "FaceApp Challenge."
The recent spike in traffic to FaceApp has also given way to memes about certain famous faces who never seem to age, like the actors Paul Rudd and John Stamos. "I would be cautious about uploading sensitive data to this company that does not take privacy very seriously, but also reserves broad rights to do whatever they want with your pictures," said Brookman, a former policy director for the Federal Trade Commission's Office of Technology Research and Investigation.
FaceApp said most of their photo editing is done off of a user's device in remove servers, and the image that is uploaded must be selected by the user. Additionally, most photos are held on remote servers for approximately 48 hours before being deleted, the statement read. "They say they only retain the photos for so long, and that you can have them removed, but that's not necessarily reliable," he said. "In some ways their statement raises many questions about their additional policies."
Will Strafach, a security researcher and CEO of the Guardian Firewall app, tweeted that he was unable to replicate any claims of the app uploading a full gallery of images without permission. However, he did say users might be unaware the app was uploading the single modified image in order to apply the filters.
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