The interview with Chris Gilliard dove into some interesting points, from the way colleges gauge student interest by the number of times they open their email to how doorbell can surveil their customers through the use of the Ring camera. But one of the more interesting points I thought came from Face App. This app recently became viral for its “aging” photos, where user submit current pictures of themselves and the app will provide an estimation of how you look in the next couple decades. From happy churchgoers to Lebron James, millions of people have used this app: but where are their pictures going? Face app stores visual data about their users and is then able to curate content or sell that data to other companies, often without or awareness or consent.
But this app brings into focus the broader argument of how companies violate our privacy and take our data through everyday actions. Even when browsing the App Store or google searching items to make a cake, big tech is monitoring our movements to better understand our behavior, and how they can better fit our needs and thus gain more profit. When we as users submit photos to face app or tweet on twitter, we must understand that we are giving away bits and pieces of ourselves to strangers whose sole intention it is to make a profit off that. And it’s important to hold companies accountable for what apps they create, especially if they’re taking user data without an explicit agreement on not selling said data. Although it’s ultimately the companies’ choosing to release apps such as face app, we the users must be more aware of what using those apps entails.
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