A viral Chinese app that lets users swap their faces with film or TV characters has sparked a privacy row.
Users provide a series of selfies in which they blink, move their mouths and make facial expressions. The app, which has now gone viral, morphs the person’s animated likeness on to movies, TV shows and pictures.
The Zao app has become the country’s most downloaded app at the moment but has raised concerns over potential misuse.
To use the app, you can sign up using your phone number and then upload images of your face from your phone.
Users can act out scenes from well-known movies using deepfake technology, which has already prompted concerns elsewhere over potential misuse.
China
The Zao app lists its developer as Changsha Shenduronghe Network Technology, which Bloomberg notes is a wholly owned subsidiary of Momo, a Chinese company that owns a live-streaming and dating service.
Deepfake is a technique for human image synthesis based on artificial intelligence – making the manufactured image appear real.
Critics have attacked the app’s privacy policy, which it had “free, irrevocable, permanent, transferable, and relicenseable” rights to all user-generated content.
User agreement
Some users are now questioning the user agreement they had to approve when using the app. Originally, the terms said the developer had the global rights to anything users made. The agreement has since been updated to reflect that Momo will seek permission from users to use any content made and will remove said content from its servers if the user deletes it.
After the backlash, the company has now changed its terms to tell users it will not use their videos or headshots for any other reason than to improve the app. The company also said it would remove any content from its servers that was uploaded but later deleted by users.
Some users are now questioning the user agreement they had to approve when using the app. Originally, the terms said the developer had the global rights to anything users made. The agreement has since been updated to reflect that Momo will seek permission from users to use any content made and will remove said content from its servers if the user deletes it.
Despite concerns, the app is still the top free download in China reached the top of the free charts on the Chinese iOS App Store.
Earlier this year, Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said the social network was trying to find ways to deal with deepfake videos, saying they may constitute “a completely different category” of misinformation than anything faced before.
Bloomberg told how Twitter user Allan Xia posted a demonstration of what the app is capable of, with a 30 second clip of their face replacing Leonardo Dicaprio in famous moments from several of his films.
Xia claimed the clips were generated in under eight seconds from just a single photograph.
The app can also allegedly guide you through the process of taking a series of photographs — where it will ask you to open and close your mouth and eyes — to generate more realistic results.
It’s a similar controversy to the one that surrounded the recent use of FaceApp.
The app’s developer was forced to clarify its privacy policy, and to offer users the option of deleting their photos off its servers if they wished.
