Zao, the Chinese app for exchanging faces with celebrities and raising concerns about privacy
Zao is the new Chinese app that allows users to exchange their faces with celebrities, sports stars, or anyone else in a video clip, and it has racked up millions of downloads last weekend, but due to coming from China already raises many concerns about privacy.
The increase in the popularity of the application and the sudden reaction of some users highlight how artificial intelligence technologies, especially those used for so-called deepfakes, are raising new concerns around identity verification with the new fashionable application, Zao .
Zao hit the App Store in China on Friday and immediately went viral in the country. According to a publication of the application manufacturers on Weibo, similar to Twitter in China, Zao's servers almost crashed due to increased traffic, and that they had a network of servers far superior to that of any start-up.
According to App Annie, a company that tracks app downloads around the world, Zao was the most downloaded free app on China's iOS app store since September 1.
App privacy is once again in question
For the use of Zao, users register with their phone number and upload images of their face, using photographs taken by the smartphone camera. Subsequently, they choose from a variety of videos of various celebrities in which to superimpose the face and then end up sharing the resulting videos on social networks. Those people include Chinese celebrities, but other famous faces on the app include Leonardo DiCaprio and Marilyn Monroe. The taste of international celebrities in China is peculiar, by the way.
As the app went viral, some users complained that its privacy policy could put them in danger, something that is not uncommon for the Chinese government. A section of the user agreement stated that consumers who upload their images to Zao agree to waive the intellectual property rights to their face and allow Zao to use their images for marketing purposes, a somewhat archaic policy that is only acceptable under conditions. of Internet use principles
The CEO of Zao himself took to Weibo to comment on these complaints
We fully understand the anxiety that people have towards privacy concerns. We have received the questions you have sent us. We are going to correct the areas that we have not considered and that require some time.
Privacy in these aspects worries, something similar has already happened with FaceApp, which has a privacy policy that may not respect European laws. Hopefully they will clarify what data Zao uses and if it is well protected since we are talking about a full face scan that could endanger the privacy of many people.
Source Reuters
