Lori Dean Dyment

12/07/2022

Please resist this app. There are numerous concerns with it including the online theft of artwork.

The “Lensa AI” Photo and Vide Editor App:

We were contacted by a parent asking us what we knew about a “free” new app that is trending with both adults and teens right now called “Lensa AI”. Over the past 2 weeks, we have seen an increase in both chatter and actually AI-generated Lensa avatar-type selfies that have been posted on several social media platforms. Presently, the app itself is hovering in and around the top three free apps being downloaded in both Canada and the United States. Once the app has been downloaded, the user can now upload a selfie of themselves (or anyone else on their camera roll without their consent) at which time Lensa’s AI will create what many describe as “celestial, iridescent, anime-styled avatars. To a lot of teens, and even adults, this will be very luring. So after downloading the app, playing with it, and researching it online, here’s what we have learned.

Is It Really FREE:

Although the app can be downloaded for free and provides a “one-week free trial”, to access the “magic avatars” you will have to pay anywhere from about $4.00 and up depending upon the number of uploads you are wanting. There is also a yearly subscription option of $29.99. This is not a free app, but rather a “freemium” based app

Privacy Concerns

We read the entire privacy policy, which most teens and adults don’t do, and there were some significant concerns that users should be aware of:

• Lensa makes it clear that they “collect information about your online activities over time and across third-party websites or other online services (behaviour tracking)” This is something that is further monetized to their financial benefit.

• Lensa does state that if you don’t want them to collect the information mentioned in the first bullet, “you can opt-out of the tracking in your settings or by contacting them via email. Again, we think most people will not read the full privacy policy so will not know that this is an option.

• Given that Lensa uploads pictures into the Google Cloud, they have to use “Google Firebase” to make this happen. We have spoken about the privacy concerns about Google Firebase in the past, and the fact that Google is now scanning and collecting a ton of personal information (including your picture) about a user’s online habits using this program and selling it to third-party advertisers. This is something that really concerns us as privacy hawks.

Age Gating and Content Download:

• Although Lensa states clearly that this app is for adults only, they still say you have to be at least 13yrs to use it - On the Apple App Store, it's rated for ages 4yrs+, how is this possible given that Lensa states you have to be at least 13yrs and recommends this app for adults only? . There is nothing to prevent a pre-teen/teen from downloading and using this app. We have seen several teens using this app and posting the results on some of the most popular social networks they are using such as TikTok or Instagram.

• Lensa also stated clearly that intimate images (n**es) should not us used, but once again there is no gating process to prevent this from happening.

Created Anime Styled Avatar Concerns:

• We have seen generated avatars that are extremely hypersexualized, especially with those who identify as female. Often, the avatars generated create highly sexualized poses or created huge semi-clad breasts. We can now appreciate why Lensa recommends this app for adults only. In one case, a user stated that a fully clothed selfie she submitted to Lensa created a topless anime-styled avatar.

• We have also read reports and have seen examples of avatars that are generated which often become racialized - pictures submitted with African, Asian, or aboriginal features are often changed so that their skin tone is whitened and facial features are more “anglicized”

Our Recommendation

Yes, this app is seen to be very cool by youth and preys upon the narcissistic nature of the human psyche. However, based upon the above-noted information, we recommend caution in allowing pre-teens and younger teens to download this app. Privacy issues, hypersexualization issues, and racialized body morphing issues can make this app problematic in our opinion. As well, I can almost guarantee that the pull of the “Magic Avatar” feature means youth will drop the money to purchase this option.

We can also see how this app could be weaponized. Given that any picture on a user’s camera roll can be uploaded, what is to stop a user from non-consensually uploading a picture of another teen (including a n**e), or even a picture of a teacher, to create a hypersexualized avatar that is now posted publicly as a weapon for the purpose tech-based facilitated abuse?

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I was 12 years old in the 9th grade - younger than my classmates, and (as you may possibly be able to imagine) pretty awkward, shy and nerdy. And I had a crush on Patrice Y., the girl who sat directly in front of me in math class (because the seats were all arranged in alphabetical order for some arbitrary reason). Of course, Patrice would never in a million years have suspected that I had a crush on her, because like I explained… painfully shy. But one day I decided I would make my big move - I decided to draw a picture of her and present her with it. But because I didn’t want to give her the impression that I LIKED her or anything, I also drew pictures of EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THE CLASS and handed those out as well, just to throw her off the scent. (Full disclosure, I tried to make Patrice’s picture a little bit better than everyone else’s, just to be subtle about my feelings.) Anyway, everybody seemed to like their drawings, and, as you may have predicted, my love life remained completely dormant for the next several years. Okay, fast forward nearly half a century later… I’m checking my Twitter feed and I see some woman on there talking about how she used to sit in front of me during 9th grade math class. Being slightly less shy at my current advanced age, I decided to follow up on this: I DM’ed her and asked if by any chance her name was Patrice. Turns out, it was. It was her - my 9th grade crush. I then followed up and asked, “Hey, by any chance do you happen to remember that one time I drew pictures of everybody in class?” A minute later she sent me this photo. She had saved it all these years. I just felt like telling this story because, well… 2020 was arguably a pretty sucky year overall, but there were some real moments of joy sprinkled in here and there - and for me, this was definitely one of them.

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