Ghanaian celebrities caught in FaceApp security brouhaha

A number of Ghanaian celebrities on Tuesday took part in a latest viral internet challenge, which involves using an application called FaceApp to take a peek into one’s future and know how they will look like in 50 years’ time or more.

Created in 2017 by developers at Wireless Lab in St. Petersburg, Russia, the app has now become of the most downloaded apps in the world.

It is enjoying a lot of attention from celebrities around the world, as well normal people.

The likes of Prince David Osei, Jackie Appiah, Stonebwoy, DKB, Kwaku Manu, James Gardiner, Eddie Nartey, Kweku Elliot and Abeiku Santana were among a tall list of top Ghanaian celebrities whose photos were seen to have joined the challenge.

But reports from the US indicate that the app may have security issues and persons using it are doing that at their own risk.

It alleged that the app’s creators are harvesting metadata from their photos.

“FaceApp uploading photos to its servers, and does not alert the user that their photo has been uploaded to the cloud, nor does it specify in its policies if the company retains your original photo,” it said.

What worsens the debates about the app is a section of its terms of service, which discusses what the company may do with photos that users upload.

The part of terms stated, “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.”

The interesting part is that if one has already uploaded a photo, there’s nothing the person can do about it. If the person has even deleted the app, his or her data is still with FaceApp.

But FaceApp has responded to the security allegations, saying, “We don’t have access to any data that could identify a person [and] we don’t sell or share any user data with any third parties.”

Meanwhile, despite the controversy about the app, some celebrities, including those from Ghana, don’t really care ? they are still enjoying their old age challenge.