You can say that again.
Unless you are hiding under a rock, someone in your life has used this app and has posted or shared the picture. My question – along with many other peoples’ (is peoples a word?) question – did you ever think about what you were “giving” to this app? Your face. Your biometrics. Potentially, your most precious asset?
Okay, so it seems some are saying it may be a bit over-exaggerated to say you are giving your biometrics (to app developers in Russia, by the way) since you are just using a picture on your phone… you are not scanning your face to upload to the app… BUT, you are still giving complete strangers a picture of your FACE! We scream about privacy everyday in our society, and how companies knowingly take our information, and then we go and start giving it away like it’s candy? Come on people.
(And for the record, I have not downloaded or used this app, so I am only reading about how it works.)
And let’s think about what else COULD have happened to our society over the last few days?
The Forbes article states that over 150 million faces have been captured by the app. I expect that number to rise more and more over the next few days. So what if this “viral” app carried a virus that could now be “launched” on all of those 150 million users? Maybe I am being tremendously cynical – but I do not necessarily agree with the writer of the article’s opinion that apps like this are not the real threat. I think apps like this threaten our ability to think rationally… which is the REAL threat.
Have we all been “blinded” by this app craze and gone along with the blind spot “group think?” Are you doing this because you really want to see what you may look like when you are older (which I have no desire to know… seriously…), or are you doing this because everyone else on your FaceBook page has done it?
In my Ethics presentation, I talk about many blind spots. Group think is only one of them. But after reading and watching everyone participate in this crazy “face phenomenon” (Oh that’s good, I think I will start that hashtag) – I must say – I believe, more than ever, this blind spot is prevalent in our society.
Just watch out.
And protect your face.
