#FaceAppChallenge: Be careful! Using FaceApp grants it the right to use your photo without your consent forever

The FaceApp has come back again and it has gone viral as usual. The first time was back in 2017, when there was an outrage over filters that changed your ethnicity

Now many people are using the FaceApp photo editor to find out what they would look like when they get old.

Created by a Russian company called Wireless Lab, the FaceApp photo filter uses Artificial Intelligence to digitally transform one’s face.

You can

– Add beautiful smile
– Get younger or older
– Gender swaps and
– Improve your selfie with cool style filters

Apparently, more than 100 million people have downloaded the app from Google Play. And according to App Annie, FaceApp is now the top-ranked app on the iOS App Store in 121 countries.

However a lot of people have not bothered to read the terms before using the app. In fact, by downloading and using FaceApp, you give the app permission to use your likeness, name and username, for any purpose, without your consent, forever, even if you delete it.

Read a section of the Terms of Use below

Our Services may allow you and other users to create, post, store and share content, including messages, text, photos, videos, software and other materials (collectively, “User Content”). User Content does not include user-generated filters. Except for the license you grant below, you retain all rights in and to your User Content, as between you and FaceApp. Further, FaceApp does not claim ownership of any User Content that you post on or through the Services.

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. When you post or otherwise share User Content on or through our Services, you understand that your User Content and any associated information (such as your [username], location or profile photo) will be visible to the public.

You grant FaceApp consent to use the User Content, regardless of whether it includes an individual’s name, likeness, voice or persona, sufficient to indicate the individual’s identity. 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. You acknowledge that some of the Services are supported by advertising revenue and may display advertisements and promotions, and you hereby agree that FaceApp may place such advertising and promotions on the Services or on, about, or in conjunction with your User Content. The manner, mode and extent of such advertising and promotions are subject to change without specific notice to you. You acknowledge that we may not always identify paid services, sponsored content, or commercial communications as such.

Basically this means that FaceApp has the right to use your face without compensation forever and wherever.

According to PhoneArena’s Peter Kostadinov, “You might end up on a billboard somewhere in Moscow, but your face will most likely end up training some AI facial-recognition algorithm.”

And you really never can tell what your picture can be used for or who it may be sold to. Just know that once you get involved, it is no longer yours.

Be careful! Remember the Facebook – Cambridge Analytica data scandal