I saw a post
on Facebook by my 30-year-old son this week that just didn’t look right. He
looked really old….I mean he looked like me.
I thought
wow, life in Little Rock, Arkansas, (where he lives) must be hard.
Then I
realized it was an app that takes your picture and morphs it into what you will
likely look like years down the road. It was only later that I came to understand
It is owned by a Russian company and called FaceApp. You choose to download it
and provide your picture, and you agree to terms of service which state the
Russians are allowed to “a perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive royalty-free,
worldwide, fully paid, transferable sub-lease to use photos uploaded to the
app from the user.” In other words, you are giving them the farm.
Members of
the U.S. Senate who have been alleging Russian interference in our election
process, are jumping all over this one. The Senate Minority Leader is even calling
for a FBI investigation.
I want to
know why Facebook is not being held accountable. I mean, the app is readily
available on the social media giant. I was there in two clicks. Why isn’t Facebook
blocking it?
Here’s the
best advice I have for you. Be discriminating in your download of apps. I have
started to delete apps on my phone and computer that I don’t use anymore. Each
one has the potential of bleeding my personal information to cyberspace.
I wouldn’t
advise using FaceApp anyway.
I won’t.
Looking in the mirror each morning is frightening enough.
Great commentary today. The advent of social media has been a goldmine for large companies to collect all the data they want on people. Typically this gets used to target ads, but there are of course even more insidious things for which that data could be used. Have you ever spoken about something around your phone and then seen ads for that same thing as you browse the internet? I know I have. It might seem paranoid to be concerned about a Russian company accessing your pictures, but the flip-side of that paranoia is to ask why it would even be necessary to have access to everything. At the very least it's incredibly creepy.
ReplyDeleteA previous app that did something similar was being used to develop better facial recognition software for the purpose of identifying human trafficking victims whose appearances might have been changed by their captors, but it's very easy to imagine a scenario in which Big Government might use its authority to force the company to turn over its databases and use those collected photos to track dissidents. Considering our history of arresting incorrect people based on appearance, it's also not hard to imagine a scenario in which someone might falsely be identified as a dangerous fugitive.
This is definitely the kind of thing that needs to be considered carefully by lawmakers, but I fear the big tech lobby might be a little too powerful.
One thing's for sure, I don't need an app to show me I'm getting old.
The app isn't Facebook's app. It is downloaded in the app stores on your phone. You then are uploading/sharing your pic to facebook. Even if they blocked it you could still screen shot your pic and upload it.
ReplyDelete