China Releases App That Lets Users Swap Their Face for Film and TV Stars

In seconds, you can turn into a hero of "Game of Thrones" or replace Leonardo DiCaprio in "Titanic".

A free app called Zao is spreading on the Chinese App Store, letting users substitute their own face for those of film and TV stars. The app launched on Friday but quickly reached the top of the Chinese chart.

It is not universal — the clips into which users can insert their faces are limited. This most likely means the developer trained its algorithms on each of these clips, and realistic results with any others will not be possible.

However, previously, technology with a similar function required many hours of work and hundreds of images, whereas now it takes just one photo and 8 seconds of processing. Yes, another blow has been dealt to video as material people trust.

What about data privacy?

A few weeks ago, the FaceApp app, which shows how a person will look in old age, topped the charts on the App Store and Google Play worldwide. It drew a great deal of criticism, as it was most likely intended to harvest users' personal data.

If the Zao app is released worldwide (for now, as a reminder, only in China), the wave of criticism will be even bigger. The developer is listed as Changsha Shenduronghe Network Technology — a subsidiary of Momo, which owns a live-streaming and dating service, which is already suspicious.

After criticism, the company said it would not use users' photos for anything other than improving the app, and that clips and photos would be deleted from its servers simultaneously with their deletion within the app. But who will believe them? If the app is free, the company pays for it by collecting users' personal data.

This issue is especially relevant in Hong Kong, where protesters try to hide their faces so they cannot be recognized and later arrested.