Everyone is talking about FaceApp – the app that can edit photos of people’s faces to show younger or older versions of themselves. Thousands of people are sharing the results of their own experiments with the app on social media. But since the face-editing tool went viral in the last few days, some have raised concerns over its terms and conditions. They argue that the company takes a cavalier approach to users’ data – but FaceApp said in a statement most images were deleted from its servers within 48 hours of being uploaded. The company also said it only ever uploaded photos that users selected for editing and not additional images.
What is FaceApp?
FaceApp什么是样的App呢？
FaceApp is not new. It first hit the headlines two years ago with its “ethnicity filters”.
These purported to transform faces of one ethnicity into another – a feature that sparked a backlash and was quickly dropped. The app can, however, turn blank or grumpy expressions into smiling ones. And it can tweak make-up styles. This is done with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). An algorithm takes the input picture of your face and adjusts it based on other imagery. This makes it possible to insert a toothy smile, for instance, while adjusting lines around the mouth, chin and cheeks for a natural look.
FaceApp并不是一个新鲜应用。两年前，它的“种族过滤器”就首次登上头条。
这些照片据称是为了把一个种族的面孔转变为另一个种族的面孔 – 这一功能引发了强烈的抵制，但是很快被取消了。 然而，该应用程序可以把空白或愤怒的表情变成微笑的表情。它还可以调整化妆风格。这是在人工智能（AI）的帮助下完成的。一种算法获取你脸部的输入图像，并根据其他图像进行调整。例如，在调整嘴巴，下巴和脸颊周围的线条，使之看起来更自然的同时，也可以露出露齿的微笑。
So what’s the problem?
那么问题是什么呢？
Eyebrows were raised lately when app developer Joshua Nozzi tweeted that FaceApp was uploading troves of photos from people’s smartphones without asking permission. However, a French cyber-security researcher who uses the pseudonym Elliot Alderson investigated Mr Nozzi’s claims. He found that no such bulk uploading was going on – FaceApp was only taking the specific photos users decided to submit. FaceApp also confirmed to the BBC that only the user-submitted photo is uploaded.
最近，当应用程序开发人员Joshua Nozzi在推特上说，FaceApp在未经许可的情况下从人们的智能手机上传了大量照片时，引起了人们的惊讶。但是，一位化名的法国 络安全研究员Elliot Alderson调查了Nozzi的说法。他发现没有这样的批量上传 – FaceApp只拍摄了用户决定提交的特定照片。FaceApp也向BBC证实，只有用户提交的照片才会被上传。
What about facial recognition?
那脸部识别呢？
Others have speculated that FaceApp may use data gathered from user photos to train facial recognition algorithms. This can be done even after the photos themselves are deleted because measurements of features on a person’s face can be extracted and used for such purposes. “No, we don’t use photos for facial recognition training,” the firm’s chief executive, Yaroslav Goncharov told BBC News. “Only for editing pictures.”
Is that it?
是这样吗？
Not quite. Some question why FaceApp needs to upload photos at all when the app could in theory just process images locally on smartphones rather than send them to the cloud. In FaceApp’s case, the server that stores user photos is located in the US. FaceApp itself is a Russian company with offices in St Petersburg. Cyber-security researcher Jane Manchun Wong tweeted that this may simply give FaceApp a competitive advantage – it is harder for others developing similar apps to see how the algorithms work.
并不完全是的。 有些人质疑为什么FaceApp需要上传照片，而该应用理论上只需要在智能手机上本地处理照片，而不是将照片发送到云端。在FaceApp应用中，存储用户照片的服务器位于美国。FaceApp本身是一家俄罗斯公司，在圣彼得堡设有办事处。 络安全研究员Jane Manchun Wong在推特上说，这可能只是给了FaceApp一个竞争优势——对于其他开发类似应用程序的人来说，很难来了解算法的工作原理。
原文链接：
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49018103
文本难度：★★★★☆
话题难度：★★★★☆
FaceApp
近几天 上最热的话题是「看看他老了以后的样子」。总部位于俄罗斯圣彼得堡的 Wireless Lab 掀起了一次 交媒体浪潮，其推出的应用「FaceAPP」在极短的时间内火遍全球。这款应用使用 AI 算法，可以瞬间把人们上传的人脸照片「年轻」或者「老化」。它就是这几天 上充斥各界明星 17 岁/80 岁照片的万恶之源。
一款使用人工智能算法的 APP 受到了所有人的欢迎，但对于最近正在严打隐私泄露的美国政坛来说情况似乎不是这样。出于该应用是俄罗斯人开发的，民主党全国委员会 (DNC) 向 2020 年民主党总统竞选团队很快发出了慎用的警告。参议院少数党领袖 Chuck Schumer 甚至正式要求 FBI 和联邦贸易委员会对该应用展开国家安全调查。
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