Here's how Russian photo editing app FaceApp works - and why the gender swap feature is trending again

FaceApp – an application that launched in 2017, and that lets you apply AI-powered filters to your face – has got a third wind of virality during lockdown.

Almost a year to the day since the #AgeChallenge saw users uploading images of themselves with the app’s filter applied – and various celebrities jumping on the bandwagon – FaceApp is now back in the public consciousness, this time with a gender-swapping filter.

It seems harmless enough: select a photo of yourself, choose from one the app’s free filters and share the results with your friends online.

But is it as innocent as that?

Here’s everything you need to know:

Why is FaceApp back?

Many are attributing FaceApp’s resurgence to a ‘new’ gender-swapping feature, but the reality is these filters have always existed on the app.

It’s not really clear why FaceApp is back in fashion; it could simply be people’s lockdown boredom tempting them back to the apps of their past.

How does it work?

The app claims to use "advanced neural portrait editing technology" to "improve your selfie".

Put simply, an AI analyses your photo, and then applies filters to it in a way that best seems humanly plausible.

That's where fears that images may be being stored for further use come in - the AI presumably learns from its past mistakes, and relies on a database of face shapes and types to best compute its designs.

Is it safe?

The app’s first and second waves of popularity raised security concerns about FaceApp’s access to your phone’s photo library.

Earlier versions of the app were able to access your entire gallery, without users necessarily giving it permission to do so, and the app's terms of use gave FaceApp a “perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, fully-paid, transferable sub-licensable license to… your User Content and any name, username or likeness provided in connection.”

FaceApp’s privacy policy has been updated since then, and no longer grants the app such sweeping permissions.

The T&Cs now state explicitly that uploaded photos will only be used for the app itself and not shared or re-used for any other reason.

The CEO of the company behind the app – a Russian company, with an address listed in St. Petersburg - has repeatedly claimed the photos are not used for any reason other than to provide the editing functionality.