What do companies do with your face?

Beyond Today

BBC

News

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2019

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ve probably used Faceapp to see how you’ll look when you’re older. But in the days after Faceapp blew up, a conspiracy theory spread across the internet. People were worried that Wireless Lab - the app’s maker - was feeding data to the Russian government. This led to the Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer calling for an investigation into FaceApp. In a letter posted on Twitter, Mr Schumer called it "deeply troubling" that personal data of US citizens could go to a "hostile foreign power". In this episode we speak to the BBC’s Russia and disinformation specialist Olga Robinson about why worrying about Faceapp’s Russian roots misses the point. Maryam Ahmed - a BBC expert in Machine intelligence – answers the questions the Faceapp story throws up and explains why any private company would want pictures of our face in the first place. Producers: Duncan Barber and Lucy Hancock. Mixed by Nicolas Raufast. Editor: Philly Beaumont.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:04.6	Hello, I'm Tina Dehealey.
0:08.0	Welcome to Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4,
0:10.9	where we ask one big question about one big story.
0:14.0	Today, what do companies do with your face?
0:27.0	Millions of people have been downloading face app. Seems like fun. It applies a little
0:37.4	AI to a selfie to make your face look older, younger, add a beard, whatever.
0:42.1	What seems like a benign new social media
0:45.2	fad, however, may actually not be benign at all. Now last week I lost half a day of
0:51.3	my life on Face Up and added 30 years to my life at the same time.
0:56.9	If somehow you missed it, this is the app that edits your photos to make you look older or younger using facial recognition technology.
1:06.3	On the same day my WhatsApp groups and Instagram feed were full of people posting photos of what they
1:12.2	or their friends, their partners might look like as pensioners.
1:16.7	Once you start using it, it's pretty addictive and fun.
1:21.1	But in the days after Faisat blew up a conspiracy theory spread across the internet.
1:27.0	So, shortly after I posted my old people face and young people face on Instagram.
1:37.1	I started to get these messages from people.
1:39.4	Oh no, Tyrone, no. The Russians have got your information now.
1:46.0	Now the Russians have all your information.
1:50.0	People were worried that Wireless Lab, the app's maker, was feeding data to the Russian government,
1:56.0	sparking warnings about Russian intelligence from Democratic senators in the United States.
2:02.0	It came to light that the app not only takes your picture
	...

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