Your Snapchat following probably see more of your beautiful face than your mom does at this spot . That ’s because those nifty slight filters , hilarious face - swaps , and missile - rainbow - barf selfies are the salutary part of Snapchat – without them , it would just be a cluster of citizenry makingmundane Storiesabout , like , what they ate for breakfast .
But if the internet truthers are to be believed , those Snapchat filters are a whole lot more nefarious than just serve tweens puppy - fy their mugs for each other ’s entertainment . The truth is out there , and it ( might ) involve 9/11 , the FBI , and a 27 - yr - old rapper named Bobby .
This whole uproar begin back in April , when rapper B.o . B dismount a catch on Twitter when he suggested that Snapchat was using its facial - recognition engineering to build a database of substance abuser ' face . This coming from a guy rope who , just a few month originally , insistedthat the worldly concern is flat , and evengot into a Twitter combat with Neil deGrasse Tysonabout it . The undecomposed people of Twitter were quick to spud him down on this theory , too , rampantlymocking himand even suggestinghe may be mentally sick .
Screenshots via Snapchat/Thrillist
OK , but hombre , what if?What if Snapchat is creating a database of all our embarrassing - screw selfies and then selling it to a third political party , like , oh I do n’t know , the GOVERNMENT ? ! ?
As it turns out , Mr. o. B ( real name : Bobby Ray Simmons , Jr. ) was n’t in reality the first mortal to have this odd query . On September 23rd of last twelvemonth , Reddit user WtfVegas702 rear some flushed flags about the then - raw feature :
According to the FBI itself , the curriculum – formally known as theNext Generation Identification system– would be charged with facial function mark shooting presently in their organisation " to see if [ they could ] find tough guy rope by matching pictures with mug shot . " Unless you ’re a crook , that ’s a tough programme to reason with , except that it was n’t the whole Sojourner Truth . pant !
Cole Saladino/Thrillist
An probe by the Electronic Frontier Foundationrevealed that the database would actually not just admit criminals , but constabulary - digest citizens with no deplorable history whatsoever as well . People who hold business of any kind that require them to submit a photo as part of a background check would end up in the database too .
Of of course , there is absolutely zero grounds connecting Snapchat with the FBI in any direction , chassis , or physique , nor any to suggest that Snapchat has reason to serve build out the Next Generation Identification organisation , because surely , Snapchat’s$150 million acquisition of facial - realisation technologyhasnothingto do with the regime . Per Snapchat ’s own Terms of Service , the company makes it very clear that they edit the photo and picture you send after it ’s viewed by the other party . They ’re not sharing it with any third party or logging it into some secret database , or whatever .
Another commenter in that same Reddit yarn share a tie-in to aNYTimesvideo boast William Binney , the former US Intelligence official who blew the whistling on theNSA ’s underground data collection methods that were put in place following 9/11 . In it , Binney discuss the computer program he outed , the Stellar Wind project , which enabled the NSA to collect vast amounts of metadata about the great unwashed ’s e-mail and net habit . Stellar Wind was officially kibosh in 2011 , but the power point is , the administration could very well be slyly compile maps of our face under the aegis of national certificate .
So what does Snapchat have to say about all of this ? I make out to the company for comment , and they merely directed me to the section oftheir privacy centerthat pretty much exists exclusively to debunk this full ridiculous belief : " While we are able to realize side in general , we do n’t store data that would let us to recognise a specific aspect . "
Sorry , B.o . B , but I ’m afraid you ’re 0 for 2 . Orareyou ?
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