Flaunting oldhood with FACEAPP

It was a regular weekend otherwise, that turned out to be interesting for people on social media apps—Facebook and Instagram was swamped with something new yet unusual. I logged into my FB, as I usually do, to get my usual dose of updates from friendly faces along with my morning cup of caffeine. I was in for a pleasant surprise because random pictures of oldies kept cropping up on my news feed. At first, I dismissed it as some ad gimmick but soon figured out that I was looking at familiar friendly faces, only 50 years in the future. It was the FaceApp Challenge, the latest internet rage.

Doesn’t it feel like almost everyone you know has been using this app? It’s actually not something new. Earlier, it had caught the internet’s attention for beautifying and even swapping gender of selfie photos. Now, it’s back in the news for predicting your future! All it does is use high-powered Artificial Intelligence that ages your face.

How Private is your data?

Before installing an app, do you inform yourself about the vulnerabilities? Do you actually have ‘wait a minute…’ expression, before you click on install?

As with any such viral phenomenon, people on the internet have been debating over privacy concerns of FaceApp. What caught people’s attention is that the app gets access to your entire photo gallery, even if it isn’t doing anything with the images, yet. About 80 million people have tried out FaceApp on the day of its launch. Even though it does not send any of your personal photos to the server, except the ones you chose to apply the filter, the scale of repercussions, if this data is misused, is enough to create panic.

FaceApp is Russia-based, a country notorious for privacy intrusion cases. Remember the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US elections using fake news? Even though FaceApp’s founder said that most images are deleted within 48 hours of upload, it’s never too late to be cautious. If you want your images to be deleted, there’s a long winding route for that too.

The convenience of the digital world

Almost all apps on your phone have access to details that you may not even know of. This is because, in the digital world, clicks are easier to provide. If this was happening in the physical world, you’d be bargaining and keeping a check till you are 100 per cent assured that your data is secure. Just as how the pinch of a credit card swipe is hardly felt as compared to handing over a wad of bills.

Several of my friends had attempted the FaceApp Challenge by using the old-age filter. Rather than cringe at the wrinkles and saggy faces, I saw that these so-called oldies were boasting about how the app actually made them feel younger! Strangely, 80 per cent of the old faces were the men in my friend list. Had more women participated, it may have been the latest ‘break the internet’ sensation!

Social stunts like the FaceApp Challenge catch on faster when celebrities participate in it, whether it be the Jonas Brothers, Drake, Gordon Ramsey or Cardi B. Social stunts are aptly designed. As users, we all get easily swayed by the proposition of personal experience. That we easily give access to a virtual world will be an understatement till the app-bubble continues to clamor human interest and draws them into an unreal world.

Social apps come with their own set of unprecedented and unexpected risks. As modern netizens, we should have learnt our lessons from the Cambridge Analytica - Facebook scandal.