What is FaceApp, the viral app that ages the face with incredible realism?

FaceApp is a free iOS and Android app that specializes in advanced photo filters and more. Face Swap. In recent weeks, there has been talk of the aging filter in particular: Stunning photos of old friends, full of realism, have been multiplying for a few days. Fans of the app even started the #FaceAppChallenge on Twitter.

Some even tried to age photos of young celebrities and compared them to real photos of their faces decades later. Same surprise every time – the result is incredibly believable, as if the app has the ability to show you the future!

Developed by Russian publisher Wireless Labs, FaceApp has been on the market since January 2017. And it has already had its share of scandals: In April 2017, for example, a filter was removed to make yourself look sexy after accusations of racism – the filter was systematically lightened dark-skinned people. A few months later, in August, it was time for ethnic filters to change into controversially “Indian” or “Asian”.

Closer to home, the app’s sudden vitality raises fears about potential risks to privacy. Risks that turn out to be unfair though.

How to install FaceApp (Google Play, App Store and APK)

To install FaceApp, simply download the app from Google Play Store or App Store. You can also directly download the APK of the app. We offer direct links to Google Play Store, App Store and APKMirror to go faster:

FaceApp on Google Play Store

FaceApp on the App Store

Face App on APKMirror

How can you age your face with FaceApp?

For him:

• Open face app
• Allow access to your photos when opening for the first time
• Choose one of your photos or take a new one
• select icon age downstairs
• Select the filter Stale
• Apply to save photo

FaceApp: why so realistic

The result of the FaceApp Aging Filter is awesome. Some even entertained aging photos of young celebrities to check the relevance of the morphological changes made by this app. Wireless Labs has specialized in this type of transformation based on machine learning and artificial intelligence since 2017. Concretely, the designers of the app fed a model with photos of young people and people of a certain age with all kinds of facial and hair transplants.

After a certain amount of data, and if the latter is diverse enough, the model “knows” how to mimic aging, whatever your face. What gives an added touch of realism is undoubtedly the fact that the filter also relies on minor imperfections of the face.

Here is an example from our editor, Romain Vitt:

FaceApp: alternatives

Among the FaceApp alternatives that include an aging filter, we can count the following two applications:

• aging cabin
• MSQRD

FaceApp: Should you be worried about your data?

With such spotlight and sometimes a sultry history in recent weeks, Internet users have quickly pointed out that the app’s terms of use are surprising, especially in terms of personal data. For example, access to user photos is described there as “irreversible”. At the risk of telling Some sites like 9to5Mac users unknowingly post all photos on their smartphones to servers in Russia. This article, like many others, has since been extensively modified by security researchers and a press release from Wireless Labs.

Their conclusion is that there is no real cause for concern. First, as French security researcher Elliot Alderson demonstrated with “A + B” in a series of tweets, the app sends servers only the photo one chooses to edit, and only the second. The app doesn’t seem to be making otherwise unreasonable or privacy-threatening requests.

In addition, FaceApp explains in a press release that these photos are usually deleted within 48 hours, the app accepts individual requests to delete personal data, they are not linked to identity data and no data is shared with third parties. or sold. In addition, the firm stated “Although the core of our R&D team is in Russia, user data is not transferred to Russia”.

To drive the point home, the firm wraps up its press release with: “We would like to comment on one of the most common concerns: all photos in the gallery will be uploaded to our servers after the user allows access to the photos. […] We are not doing this. We just upload a photo for editing. You can check this with any network sniffing tool available on the internet”.