by Andra Albisoru
In case you have been on any social media platform in the past week, most probably you have come across pictures produces by the new mobile application, Lensa AI. This is a photo-editing app available for IOS and Android users, where uploaded selfies are transformed into avatars. The app allows the user to retouch their photos, change the background, or modify it to fit into different time period art currents.
Nevertheless, as nicely as it sounds, this app does not come without any privacy concerns, which may easily be overlooked by the common smartphone user, eager to jump on this trend as well. Therefore, we thought it would bring a benefit to explain these concerns in a simple manner, and warning potential users of the security risks they expose themselves when using the mobile application.
When reading the documentation of the Lensa app, several red flags may be noticed. While it is stated in section 5 of their privacy policy that the pictures collected from users are not used for other purposes than for applying the relevant filters, in the Terms of Use of the application it states that by using the app, you grand โa perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, fully-paid, transferable, sub-licensable license to use, reproduce, modify, distribute, create derivative works of your User Contentโ, for advertising, commercial purposes, as well as for training of the AI.
Moreover, in order to use this app, a 1 use fee needs to be paid, and in return you receive 50 edited imagines, based on the photos that you have uploaded. However, the tool used for these edits is a tool developed by Prisma Labs, which owns the Lensa app too. In essence, when using this app, you are offering a company free training for their AI, which helps them further develop and improve their product, as well as creating free advertisement for them. All that, in return for 50 edited avatars.
Lastly, there is a social concern which condemns the implication of artificial intelligence in face recognition practices, as it creates high risks of IP theft, as well as identity theft. The boundaries of ownership for the usage of this application are still ambiguous, leaving room for too much interpretation with regards to whom may use the images after they have been created.
If you have already used the application and you are worried that your data may not be used in an ethical way, you may send an e-mail to privacy@lensa-ai.com and you may ask for your collected data to be deleted. Additionally, if your pictures are used in advertising, you may send an e-mail to contact@lensa-ai.com and you may revoke that permission. It is important to create and maintain a secure and ethical environment on the internet, especially when it comes to our facial data.